


True Colours

by persephoneregina



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: 80's, 80's AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:07:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21944836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephoneregina/pseuds/persephoneregina
Summary: “What the- Hey, dumb blonde! Keep your hands off!” He venomously hisses at him through his gritting teeth.“Don’t get your hopes so high, Park, it’s not like there’s anything to touch over there. It’s just that my wallet slipped from my hands.” Yeosang retaliates, his speech running faster than his brain as he nonchalantly kneels to pick up the wallet, taking the chance to hide his blushing cheeks from him for a few seconds, before standing up again and looking at the both of them with his best poker face.Anyway, his provocation must’ve worked quite fine, since Seonghwa only replies with a raise of eyebrow before turning back around, while Hongjoong is clearly trying to hold his laughter as he proceeds to loudly spank Seonghwa, for real this time, and feel the flesh under his small palm.“He’s not wrong, though, you know?” Hongjoong spits out, before bursting out in a wheezing laughter that makes everyone’s heads turn towards them.“Oh, shut up, please, or I’ll spread the rumor that you actually like that Mingi loser!” Retorts Seonghwa, making Hongjoong suddenly blush and stare at him, jaw dropped in shock.
Relationships: Choi Jongho/Jeong Yunho, Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Kang Yeosang/Park Seonghwa, Kim Hongjoong/Song Mingi
Comments: 17
Kudos: 83





	1. 1

# True Colours

It’s an autumnal sunny morning, one of those mornings that feature the perfect amount of stinging chilly breeze and sunshine’s comforting warmth.

The golden light, filtering from the yellow curtains of Yeosang’s room, tenderly kisses his skin and makes his eyelids flutter, as he slowly reemerges to consciousness after a long night’s rest.

It’s the first day of his second year at university and he has clearly woken up way too early, probably because of his nerves playing tricks on him. He never gets used to first days. Even though he perfectly knows what to expect, he’s not a freshman anymore after all, he still gets nervous just like he did when he was in elementary school.

Beginnings make him tense.

He just can’t help it.

Good thing is, he thinks to himself, at least this way he’ll have enough time to start the day with all the time in the world, he’ll take a nice, warm shower, prepare his notebooks, choose which clothes to wear and, if he’ll feel generous enough, he might even go and grab breakfast for himself and those two loud, insufferable rascals he calls friends and flat mates as well.

It’s not like they deserve it: he’s not kidding when he says they’re a complete mess, but then again, they’re _his_ mess. A mess he has chosen willingly- well, partly.

Wooyoung and him have been friends since kindergarten: he doesn’t really remember how it happened, he was a very shy kid at the time (not that he managed to completely brush the shyness off of himself with the years), while Wooyoung looked to him like the embodiment of ray of light, always so bright, vivacious, playful, serving toothless smiles right and left and with the loudest laughter of them all. Even then, he had that glossy bob of fluffy, thick, blonde hair, gentle, warm, hazel eyes and a smile that instantly lit up everything surrounding him. He had that something that made people instinctively love him, Yeosang clearly remembered how he would be every teacher’s darling, in spite of his poor schoolwork. They clearly had nothing in common.

Yeosang had always been a very secretive and lonely child.

He was smaller than the others, private, reflective, and had lots of issues when it came to interact with other children.

No matter how hard he tried, he struggled so much to fit in, to the point that he couldn’t even say his name out loud without feeling boiling tears filling up his eyes. He kept questioning what was wrong with him, and he probably would have been so much more miserable and lonelier if Wooyoung had never decided to storm into his early life. In spite of the obvious oddity of their personalities, that outgoing, talkative, dynamic kid had chosen him, the shyest, quietest one of all, for clearly unknown and still, to this day, incomprehensible reasons, and decided right away that they had to become best friends.

Somehow, strangely enough, it worked.

Wooyoung and him had been inseparable ever since: they lived in the same neighborhood, they went to the same schools, they studied at each other’s house, knew their respective families, took the same dancing and acting lessons, so it was only natural they chose to apply for the same university. Yeosang still remembers Wooyoung running at full speed on the sidewalk towards his home, with his hands thrown up in the air, and calling his name at the top of his lungs when he got his acceptance letter. He didn’t even have the time to realize what had happened when he felt Wooyoung’s hands, wrapped around his waist, lifting him up and spinning him around.

“I was admitted! Yeosang, can you believe it? I WAS ADMITTED!”

Yeosang doesn’t even need to focus to still hear how Wooyoung’s _extremely_ high-pitched screams mercilessly pierced his eardrums.

He even remembers his own answer.

“Oh, thank God they finally accepted you into an asylum! My prayers have been answered!”

“Ah, shut up, I know you’re happy, too, _weirdo_ …” Wooyoung had a very strange way of pouting, Yeosang always thought it looked more like an angry lion puppy growling rather than an endearing expression.

“Of course I’m happy, I just wonder _how_ anyone in their right mind would accept you in their university, I’m beginning to question my judgement criteria when it came to choose where to apply for…”

He got interrupted by Wooyoung’s hand pressed on his mouth, mid speech, while with the other one he mimicked a duck’s beak opening and closing extremely fast.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, all of that, whatever. Keep complaining, keep nagging like a bitter old lady, do you, I’m not affected in the slightest. You try to be a tough cookie but I know that’s how you show love, so do me the freaking favor to come over here and give me a hug.”

But Yeosang didn’t hug him. He bit his hand, and earned himself a sonorous spank on his left asscheek for that, before his best friend and him bursted out in a loud laughter.

A few months later, when the time came for them to move to their university, Yeosang to study Engineering, Wooyoung to study Performative Arts, their first concern was to find a small house where to settle and split the rent, or at least that was their original plan. That’s when they met the one who had become their other best friend, Choi San, who popped up when they were the most desperate. Wooyoung and Yeosang were queueing at a payphone next to the campus’ entrance to call a few of the numbers they had collected from the numerous rental advertisements posted around the cafeteria and the corridors of their faculties, when they begun to question what the heck was the guy inside of it talking about and why on Earth was making him so upset.

While Yeosang was growing impatient, Wooyoung was rather curious, and when the boy walked out, they both noticed how he looked beyond wrecked, red haloed eyes and wet lashes, pale as a sheet and lips swollen because of how he kept biting them and ripping the skin off. Yeosang tried to nonchalantly walk inside the payphone’s cabin, but Wooyoung of course had to ignore him, as he abruptly grabbed the boy by the sleeve of his pastel lilac oversized hoodie and stopped him on his feet, asking him what was going on. Yeosang still remembers how he was being extremely annoyed and uncomfortable: he has never been the emotionally supportive kind of person, not because he doesn’t feel emotion or any of that edgy demeanor, it’s rather that he just gets uneasy whenever he tries to comfort someone, let alone someone he doesn’t even know. He never knows what to say or do in those circumstances, he’s not a hug kind of person, nor a sweet talker, he’s more the person one can be with when they need a silent kind of comfort, when things get so bad that all they want to do is to not be alone but without feeling any pressure to talk about it, that’s his thing. Anyways, when Wooyoung did that, the phone boy threw himself into his arms, out of the blue, and melted down in an endless crying, thing which none of them had seen coming, not even Wooyoung, who looked for Yeosang’s eyes with the most confused and shocked expression, silently asking for a suggestion, any suggestion, about what to do. Yeosang then grabbed Wooyoung’s hand, moved it to awkwardly pat the back of the crying boy, until his friend begun to move it on his own, and then gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up, matched by vigorous nods of his head bobbing in approval. When he eventually stopped crying, the incredibly handsome yet sad boy told them that his name was Choi San, that he was a Foreign Languages and Literatures student and he explained how he was in deep shit because his two course mates, who should have shared the flat he had already paid the deposit for, had withdrawn last minute from their preexisting agreement, leaving him with the burden of the first installment, which he could have never afforded to pay by himself, pending on his head. When they heard about that ugly business and considering how desperate they were to find an accommodation, they asked him to see the place.

Needless to say, they loved it: it was a nice apartment, with a small kitchen, a very essential living room, one bathroom and three bedrooms.

San’s one had been already custom furnished and decorated by him with a cozy bed, occupied by pillows and plushies, most of them shaped like Shiba Inus, in all possible sizes and fabrics, a desk with a pastel colored stereo on top of it and a brand new gameboy, a library filled with more CDs than books and a wardrobe, overflowing with clothes. Wooyoung and him liked it so much that they decided to offer San to share it with them right away.

That was how their friendship had begun, all thanks to two backstabbing assholes and to the undeniable desperation that they all shared concerning their future accommodation.

With time, the three of them have managed to find a kind of balance in their weird cohabitation and their relationship has evolved.

San has proven to be just as clingy as Wooyoung, a trait for which Yeosang is more grateful than he likes to admit, since Wooyoung is still the baby lion he used to be in kindergarten, except for his body having grown incredibly strong, and his habit to pounce and randomly hug people has finally found a more than adequate target. Even if the two of them are, at times, obnoxiously loud and overly physical, Yeosang is the happiest when he’s with them.

There is something about their company that makes him comfortable to be himself, in spite of his introverted and private nature, and even if his personality is not as outgoing as his friends’ one or if his displays of affection aren’t as bold as theirs, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t thoroughly love and cherish them, and there is something therapeutic in their relationship, especially in the way they all try to support one another in the different aspects of their lives and bring out the best side of each other when they’re together. Yeosang feels instinctively comfortable around them, they’re the people who have helped him become more talkative and confident in his personality by listening to what he has to say, by encouraging him to express his thoughts and by pulling him out of his shell with their playfulness, so much that the lonely kid he was almost feels like a stranger nowadays.

The way each of them brings something to the table of their friendship is something that never ceases to amaze him: Wooyoung with his energetic and cheerful ways, San with his gentle and caring attitude, him with his stingy yet hilarious sense of humor and sweet manners make a truly well-rounded group, where there is room for fun, games and joyfulness, but also for intimate talks and personal growth.

Wooyoung, San and he may seem like an odd, loud and spirited lot, but there is so much more to them than what people see. The students at their university have become accustomed to call them “the dumb blondes”, mostly because of their hair being in different shades of gold and the way they get overly excited when they’re together, name which annoyed Wooyoung quite a lot in the beginning and that implied a lot of growling ang teeth gritting the first time he’d hear that, but that didn’t bother San at all, who would just flick his soft, fluffy, silvery blonde hair on purpose and teasingly smirk over his shoulder as soon as someone would call him like that, nor him, who would just grab Wooyoung and San’s arms and whisper “It’s okay, let them be content with their nonsense. We’ll show them, eventually, how they’re all dumber than the Dumb Blondes.”

By the time he takes this trip on memory lane, he has finished showering and drying his hair.

He silently goes to check for San and Wooyoung to see if they’re still sleeping. With a firm yet careful grip around the doorknob, Yeosang slowly opens the door to his best friend’s room, trying not to make any sound. The curtains are completely pulled, but in spite of the overall darkness he can see that Wooyoung’s bed is empty and perfectly tidied up, untouched from the previous day.

“Ah, here we go again…” He sighs, wondering about where he might be. He knows for sure that Wooyoung is not going out with anyone, even though lately he feels like there’s something off with him. He has always gone on dates with handsome boys (each and every one of them turning out to be a douchebag), yet he used to come back home afterwards and stay up with him and San to tell them everything about his dates. Every time Yeosang finds out that Wooyoung has spent the night out he can’t help but feel a slight sense of concern for him, since lately he seems to be under the influence of the “bad guys” charm more than usual, and even though Yeosang has never been in a relationship himself, he knows that’s not what Wooyoung really wants. He seems to be overlapping the need to be loved with the one to be desired and Yeosang just doesn’t want him to get hurt in the process of sorting them out.

Then, he heads to San’s room. Once more, he carefully turns the doorknob and slightly pushes the door to peek inside. To his surprise, buried under an undefined number of plushies, he finds San and Wooyoung, hugging one another and deeply asleep. Their faces look as peaceful as ever and he notices how San’s lips are curled in a pout and placed right over Wooyoung’s forehead, while Wooyoung’s arms are wrapped around San’s chest and his legs are around his waist.

 _They’re adorable_ , he thinks to himself, with a hint of a smile forcefully pushing the corners of his lips.

Yeosang feels a sense of genuine relief and, for a second, a weird thought crosses his mind at the sight of the two of them being so intimately together…

_Wouldn’t they make the cutest couple though?_

By the time Yeosang fully focuses on getting that thought out of his head, he recognizes it’s going to be a weirdly hard task: the one that has just insinuated itself into his mind inevitably seems like one of those thoughts that he won’t be able to just shake off anytime soon. Yeosang decides that, after all, they deserved a nice breakfast, to begin the academic year with the right energy. By the time he’ll be back, those two will be hopefully awake, because Yeosang for sure doesn’t want to barge in their love nest and come into the middle of whatever is going on between those two to wake them up.

When he arrives at the café near their campus to grab breakfast, Yeosang finds himself queueing behind the two most annoying students of the whole university, the ones that are known to all as “The Odd Couple”: they’re the two best students of the Fashion Studies faculty, all slick and polished, even at 7:00 A.M., with that perennial diva attitude and a clear “you can’t sit with us” sign written on their foreheads. Yeosang doesn’t like them, he doesn’t like them at all. He can’t bear how they take themselves so seriously when, in the end, they’re basically studying something so mundane and trivial, or how they act like they’re bound to be the next big thing, or how they treat anyone else, for that matter. On that note, there are a few other several reasons for not liking them: one is that he knows that it was the tall one, Park Seonghwa or what’s his name, to call them “Dumb Blondes” for the first time, like, how dared he come up with such a judgmental nickname for people he doesn’t even know?, and the other one is that one of his friends, Mingi, a physiotherapy student that Wooyoung introduced to them after knowing him from the university’s track team, has the weirdest, fattest crush on the smaller guy, Kim Hongjoong, who seems to take a great deal of fun in mistreating and humiliating him in return. If only he could, Yeosang would tell him off and teach him once and for all how to behave, but unfortunately Mingi doesn’t want anyone interfering when it comes to Hongjoong, it’s almost as if the more he gets mistreated, the more he defends him, without any particular reason besides the fact of being utterly, stupidly and stubbornly in love with him.

Anyway, that morning the Odd Couple is busy talking about their product design course or something, and Yeosang can’t help but mindlessly overhear the conversation between the two of them.

“I already know what I want to do!” Hongjoong tells his pal, with an enthusiastic light in his eyes as he bites his lower lip in excitement. “If the chance is given, I want to work on a project for some sneakers. I have been thinking about it the whole summer and even prepared some sketches, I’ll show you later when we get home!”

Seonghwa, instead, looks quite unimpressed and calm as he flips his golden brownish side bangs away from his face, carefully making that casual gesture look like a scene cut from a perfume’s spot or something.

“Of course it had to be shoes, huh? You are so obsessed, Hongjoong, I swear to God, if you don’t show a bit of versatility Professor Oh is going to snap at you…”

_He’s handsome. He’s a douchebag, but an extremely good looking one._

Yeosang always gets this feeling of both nuisance and attraction whenever he sees Seonghwa, of which he’s even quite ashamed, because for as much as he would like to despise him, and of course a part of him (well, the vast majority of himself) does, but at the same time he has to observe how he’s not immune at all to the magnetic charm of his beauty. His eyes, most of all, are the part of Seonghwa that threatens Yeosang’s self-control the most: they’re unbelievably and ridiculously attractive eyes, with a severe shape, enhanced by his naturally perfect, upward brows, and a color as intense and piercing as ice. The few times Yeosang has dared to look right into them, he remembers feeling as if he were falling into a black hole, helplessly driven towards the danger of the unknown things which he might discover him harboring inside of them.

Not like the rest of Seonghwa’s body looks any less dangerous than his eyes. His tall, lean, toned figure, always hugged by the most refined clothes he has ever seen anyone wearing, is the most graceful and elegant one Yeosang has ever seen. In spite of the cold sharpness of his persona, his movements, his stride, his general demeanor exude an elegance, a charm, a hypnotizing softness that lays in the smooth, slow, minimal fluctuations of his hands, in the curve of his mouth, in the fluctuations of his hips, in the strut of his walk.

Deeply lost in such thoughts, Yeosang keeps fidgeting with the zipper of his backpack to take out his wallet, trying to pull it out by grabbing it from one of its edges, but inadvertently ends up pulling so hard that it slips out of it grip and hits Seonghwa like a slap on his butt. Yeosang doesn’t even have the time to panic, as he becomes white as a sheet and begins to sweat, when Seonghwa turns towards him at the speed of light and with a furious frown on his face.

“What the- Hey, dumb blonde! Keep your hands off!” He venomously hisses at him through his gritting teeth.

“Don’t get your hopes so high, Park, it’s not like there’s anything to touch over there. It’s just that my wallet slipped from my hands.” Yeosang retaliates, his speech running faster than his brain as he nonchalantly kneels to pick up the wallet, taking the chance to hide his blushing cheeks from him for a few seconds, before standing up again and looking at the both of them with his best poker face.

Anyway, his provocation must’ve worked quite fine, since Seonghwa only replies with a raise of eyebrow before turning back around, while Hongjoong is clearly trying to hold his laughter as he proceeds to loudly spank Seonghwa, for real this time, and feel the flesh under his small palm.

“He’s not wrong, though, you know?” Hongjoong spits out, before bursting out in a wheezing laughter that makes everyone’s heads turn towards them.

“Oh, shut up, please, or I’ll spread the rumor that you actually like that Mingi loser!” Retorts Seonghwa, making Hongjoong suddenly blush and stare at him, jaw dropped in shock.

“Oh no…Oh no, no, no, no way!” Seonghwa says, like he’s just had the intuition of the century. “You _like_ him!”

“Not a chance...” Hongjoong tries to dismiss the subject, yet his cheeks are clearly flushed.

“You _do_! Look at yourself, all blushing and sparkly-eyed!” Seonghwa keeps teasing him, trying to pull his friend’s face up so that he can take a better look at him.

But when he eventually does, there’s not a joking smile on Hongjoong’s face anymore. He looks furious. His brows are furrowed and his chees are sucked in, as he presses his lips together and nervously swallows. Seonghwa immediately lets go of his chin and his look switches from curiosity to a silent apologetic expression.

“Knock it off, hyung, I’m not that tasteless to actually like someone whose blood rushes quicker to the dick than it does to the brain. Can’t wait for the day he’ll eventually leave me alone since this is getting exhausting, like, get a grip, get a life loser…” Hongjoong harshly retaliates, making sure to look at Yeosang in the eyes as he speaks, almost as if he wishes for him to get his message through to Mingi.

There’s really no need for that, though, since Yeosang can’t even count the amount of times he has told Mingi to just focus on someone else, that he can have so much better than that, and yet hearing that little entitled asshole speak of his friend in those terms infuriates him more than he expects, since Yeosang is usually a quite unbothered person who doesn’t give too much credit to other people’s opinion. He clenches his fists, angrily, but doesn’t have the guts to react.

But while the two of them pick up their coffees and walk away, that’s when a glimpse of instinct and probably utter stupidity crosses Yeosang’s mind: as Hongjoong walks past him, he picks up his backpack and hits the smaller boy on the shoulder with a harsh movement, making him spill his whole cup of coffee on his -presumably expensive- clothes.

Hongjoong freezes and stares at him with a blazing glare, gaping because of the heat and the shock. He’s clearly furious, but Yeosang isn’t any less angry at him for the manners and the harshness with which he has just spoken about his friend and for sure hasn’t the slightest intention to apologize. Yeosang holds Hongjoong’s stare for a while and then says, in a mocking tone: “Oops… How was that… Get a grip, am I right? Well, what happened to your grip? Because it seems really shitty, so you might want to check yourself before you shit on anyone else.”

When Hongjoong is about to answer, Seonghwa intervenes and pulls him away into his arms, mouthing a silent “fuck off”, that Yeosang takes in with a wide smile and blowing a kiss, putting on his best poker face to hide the instant regret that has ran over him just a few seconds after sabotaging their breakfast. It was deserved, of course, but that doesn’t mean it was _needed_ , either: after all he’s in no position to pick Mingi’s fights, that he knows well, but the feeling still stands that he could not have been able to answer to his conscience if he hadn’t taken any position after such a blunt provocation. Anyway, he doesn’t have that much time to think about his actions: the barista has called him twice already, and he has two hungry, feral puppies waiting for him at home.

When Yeosang opens the door, he is instantly struck by the slightly gritting music of the stereo playing a song from Cyndi Lauper and by the loud, chirping sound of their laughs coming behind San’s bedroom door. He doesn’t even bother to knock since it’s quite obvious that they’re awake, and catches them singing, hairbrushes as microphones, and bouncing and dancing on San’s bed, not a care in this world. When Yeosang walks in, though, the two are so surprised that they end up falling down on each other, San lying on the bed and Wooyoung landing on all fours onto him, a quite mischievous smile on his lips that lights up a bright blush on San’s cheeks. To overcome the thick wall of embarrassment that has just fallen over the entire room, Yeosang lifts the brown paper bag with their breakfast right in front of Wooyoung’s and San’s eyes, happily wiggling it.

“Got your favorites! Get out of bed or I’ll eat everything by myself!” he says, before running towards the kitchen.

“Kang Yeosang!” Wooyoung roars, pouncing out of the bed but tripping over a few plushies that have fallen down at his feet.

“Is that all you got, tiger?” San says with a wink, before gracefully hopping over Wooyoung and following Yeosang in the kitchen.

“I’ll show you what I’ve got in a minute!” Retorts Wooyoung, running after San and trying to grab him by his loose pajama shirt.

When all the three of them are in the kitchen, Yeosang begins to pull out the three beverages and the food he bought out of the bag, handing San a couple of chocolate chip cookies and a latte, a cinnamon roll and a cappuccino to Wooyoung, while he takes out for himself a triple chocolate muffin and a red berries tea.

“You’ll never guess who I ran into at the café…” He begins to speak, clearly still irritated at his previous encounter.

“Who?” Asks Wooyoung, or at least this is what Yeosang seems to hear since the sound coming from his mouth is quite muffled by the large bite of food he is munching.

“The Odd Couple.” Yeosang answers, checking his friends’ faces for a reaction.

San immediately rolls his eyes and sighs, Wooyoung lays back against the backrest of the chair to express his exhaustion.

“Don’t tell me- Did they bother you?” San asks after swallowing a sip of his latte.

“Not really… I mean, they could actually say I bothered them, since I accidentally bumped my backpack against Hongjoong and successfully helped him dyeing his clothes with the coffee he had just purchased…” He says, awakening the curiosity of his friends, who are now staring at him with shocked expressions.

“You did _what_ now?” Wooyoung screams, incapable of shutting his mouth.

“Yeosang! Whatever he did, this was not nice of you! We always keep telling each other that we just have to ignore them and now you’ve done this… Why, just why?” Whines San, trying to be the voice of reason even though he’s clearly too late for this task.

“Listen- You’d have done the same, ok? Even you, San. Hongjoong was talking shit about Mingi, and he was being so mean and angry and resentful that even I got irritated.”

“Yeosang… Sweetheart, I hate to tell you, but Mingi is a grown ass man. He doesn’t need you to fight his battles, even more so when it’s a battle he doesn’t want to pick at all. He’s a sucker for that boy, what are you gonna do about it? Brainwash him with the Clockwork Orange eye thingies?” San doesn’t seem willing to give up.

“I know, but… It’s just not fair. Who does he think he is to make Mingi his fool and talk shit at his back with that other prissy dude?” Now it’s Yeosang’s time to whine, as he angrily gesticulates to let out his frustration.

“Listen, I know where you’re coming from and I understand you, trust me, I do. All I’m saying is we need to ignore them. They’re just students, like all of us, and the fact that they need to live this fantasy where they’re above everyone else says it all about how insecure and fragile they truly must be deep inside. It’s like… A coping mechanism for their delusion of not being special. If you think about it, it’s actually rather sad. What’s more, you’re being unfair to Mingi by behaving like this. It’s the same as saying that he’s too dumb to notice how much of an asshole his crush is and that he’s incapable to mindfully choose who he likes.”

“But he is! -Retorts Yeosang- Wooyoung, come on, be on my side on this one! Mingi has clearly chosen someone who doesn’t like him back or even value him for the person he is, as his friends we _need_ to intervene!”

“Listen, I think we’ve been even way more tolerant than needed with those dudes. Had I been there, I’d have smacked him on the head and made him one foot shorter. Sorry San.” Wooyoung says, shrugging with a smirk that speaks volumes about how he’s not sorry at all.

“I’m not saying we need to throw hands…” Yeosang rushes to stop his friend’s impetus with a sheer nervous, yet amused, giggle.

“But!” Wooyoung interrupts him, disappointed.

“All I’m saying is that we need to at least let Mingi know which ones are Hongjoong’s true colors.” Tries to argue Yeosang, finding a supportive thumb up from Wooyoung and a disappointed, raised eyebrow from San.

“You’re going to do it anyway, so no point in trying to stop you, but believe me, he will be anything but grateful to you for that.”

“But San, think about it: if you were really into someone, wouldn’t you like to know? I mean if you were that into someone, like, on a Mingi’s way of being into someone… I think it’s only fair if we tell him, we’re not doing it because we want to hate or something, it’s because we care about him! Moreover, if I were him and I figured that y’all knew something so relevant about the person I had a crush on, I’d be seriously pissed if you didn’t tell me." This time Wooyoung is clearly trying to prove his point and all that San can do is sigh, defeated. 

"I have to agree..." San looks away, biting his lower lip, clearly distressed by the whole situation. He knows they're about to break Mingi's heart, and yet there's really nothing he can do.

"Good then. We'll head to his place after our lessons." Yeosang says, determined, wrapping up their discussion. 

He knows it's going to be hard, and even though he hates it, he definitely hates more seeing Mingi throwing himself away after that ungrateful, prissy, stuck up midget.

If someone has to do something about it, it's better if it's them.

* * *

It’s 6 p.m. when the three of them group up for their expedition.

Yeosang notices how San is beyond nervous and keeps on scratching the cuticles around his nails, tormenting his skin and peeling it with his teeth, while Wooyoung seems to be already in the mood, since he can see the look of determination and resentment on his face.

He doesn’t even need to speak up for Yeosang to know how he’s feeling, and he really can’t blame him, because that’s how he’s feeling too: frustrated, angry, and moderately (to be polite) sick of Hongjoong’s bullshit.

They walk to Mingi’s flat without saying a word except from a few small talk lines, which is quite unusual of them, since usually, when they’re together, there’s really no way to make them shut up. Yeosang keeps having second thoughts about what they’re about to do, which he struggles really hard to push to the sides of his mind as he tries to convince himself, following the train of thought according to which that one is the right thing, that they’re only doing what’s fair. But his bowels just don’t seem to be persuadable, as he feels them toss and turn and clench and burn.

He has a moment of hesitation before being actually able to ring the doorbell.

His eyes meet San’s sad glare at first, and Yeosang’s heart clenches in his chest, but before he can say anything, Wooyoung pats him on the shoulder and grabs it firmly.

“Is everything alright, hyung?” Wooyoung asks with the tone of someone who demands a yes for an answer.

“Yes, yes, I just… I just got absent minded for a second. Fucking economy class.” He lies and forces a smile. Then, he proceeds to push the brazen button.

After a few seconds, they hear the sound of some fast, energetic, dragged steps moving towards the door and they are greeted by Mingi’s best friend and flatmate, Jeong Yunho, an extremely charming, fascinating, handsome young man, the tallest of them all, wearing a tracksuit and with his pink, straight hair still wet.

“What’s popping guys? To what do we owe the honour of the whole committee’s visit? Don’t tell me it’s economy, Yeosang, because I literally don’t even have the time to breathe, let alone tutoring you…” The gleeful tone of his voice and the bright smile on his lips slowly die as soon as he notices the grave look on their faces.

“”Guys? Is anything the matter?” He asks, kind of worried.

“Is Mingi home?” San gently asks, while Yeosang mouths the word “Hongjoong” for Yunho to see.

The boy’s eyes turn dark and nervous as soon as he reads Yeosang’s lips and nods, pointing the living room with a bob of his head, like someone who has already understood the whole matter.

When they walk into the living room, they find Mingi sitting on the sofa, legs crossed, a hairband pushing his hair backwards, wearing glasses and deeply absorbed in fixing his notes.

“Hello!” Chirps San, waving his hand and smiling forcefully, dimples on full display.

“Oh! Guys, hi! I didn’t hear you, sorry… Damn, it’s been one day back to uni and I’m already going nuts with these damn notes. Sit down, come on, I’ll go grab something to drink…” Mingi immediately stands up as soon as he sees them and rushes to greet them all with a hug, smiling widely.

“I’ll go! You relax and take a break!” Promptly says Yunho, leaving for the kitchen.

Wooyoung, Yeosang and San all sit down on the sofa opposite to the one where Mingi was studying just a few seconds ago, and Yeosang can’t help but feel something similar to a stab at the mouth of his stomach. 

He looks at Mingi and feels guilty at the sight of his adorable smile, of his glistening eyes, of his enthusiastic ways… It’s so excruciating that he wishes he could just walk away and pretend like nothing happened, but then he feels Wooyoung’s hand patting on his leg and reminds that they’ve definitely crossed the line of going back from their decision. 

He takes a deep breath. 

_ Do it, Yeosang. You can do it. _

_ Do it like a band aid _ .

“Mingi… There’s something we need to tell you.” Wooyoung takes the initiative, thing for which Yeosang suddenly is more than grateful.

“Oh, what is it?” Mingi asks, puzzled, his plump mouth opened and curled in a circular shape.

“It-It’s…” Yeosang begins to speak, but his voice is inaudible and the words die in his throat, midway, before he even manages to push them out of his mouth. “It’s Hongjoong.”

“Really?!? -Exclaims Mingi, his face clearly lightning up at the very sound of his crush’s name- What about him? Yo, why do y’all look like you’re going to a funeral? It’s my favourite subject, come on, spit it out!” 

San sighs, broken by the way Mingi doesn’t seem to be able to catch the grasp of the whole situation.

“Mingi, darling, listen. Yeosang today accidentally met Hongjoong and Seonghwa while buying breakfast and… Well, it wasn’t cute.” San diplomatically, as usual of him, tries to gently lead Mingi to the whole point of their visit, and eventually Mingi begins to tense up and nervously tap with his foot on the soft, fuzzy carpet on the ground.

In the meanwhile, Yunho gets back from the kitchen, carrying a tray with five glasses of orange juice, which he leaves on the tea table sitting at the center of the room, before plopping down on the sofa, next to Mingi.

“I want to hear it from him.” Mingi abruptly interrupts San with a growl. “You all came here to speak but he’s the one who was there. So if someone has to speak, be it him. Shut the fuck up San.”

Mingi looks at Yeosang with a fierce, fiery, challenging look, and Yeosang feels as small and insignificant as ever. He feels his cheek burning and he’d like to cry, but he most definitely can’t.

_ Do it, Yeosang. You can do it. _

_ Do it like a band aid _ .

“He’s right, San. -Yeosang says, looking at his friend and holding his frozen hand.- So, I was in line right at their back, so I couldn’t help but overhearing their conversation, since they were being loud as usual. At first they were just chitchatting, like they always do, but then they began to quarrel and Seonghwa started to tease Hongjoong, telling him that he would have told you that Hongjoong likes you… Which, we all know, isn’t even that unusual. But what upset me and the reason why I thought you might have needed to hear this is the way Hongjoong reacted. Like, I could tell that Seonghwa was harmlessly joking, but for somewhat reason he really blew it out of proportions and literally snapped at Hwa. He got extremely serious and told him to cut it short, that he would have never been so tasteless to, and I quote,  _ actually like someone whose blood rushes quicker to the dick than it does to the head _ , end quote, and that he truly couldn’t wait for the day when you would have left him alone and gotten yourself a life. I got home and told Wooyoung and San about this whole thing. We talked about it and thought that you should’ve known about this, since we thought that, if one of us liked someone the way you like-”

“ _ Love _ .” Mingi says out loud, interrupting Yeosang. “I don’t like Hongjoong. I love him. So if you’re really going for this kind of talk, you might want to use the right words to say what you mean and mean what you say.”

Yeosang swallows the thick knot of anxiety in his throat and forces himself to finish his speech.

“Yes… Sorry, Mingi...If one of us loved someone the way you  _ love _ Hongjoong, and we knew a piece of information such as this one, we would have been furious if no one told us. You do you, of course, we’re not here to tell you how to react or what to do now. We just wanted… We thought it would have better if you’d have heard from us, being your friends, rather that anyone else.”

Yeosang lowers his gaze and tries to make himself smaller and smaller, attempting to vanish or magically disappear from the room, unable to bear the weight of Mingi’s gaze hovering onto his face.

There are a few seconds of complete, utter, dead silence, before Mingi opens up his mouth.

“Leave.” He says, with an atone voice.

“What?” Interjects Wooyoung, shocked.

“Leave. I said leave. Leave. Get the fuck out of here. What is it now, are you all deaf? _JUST LEAVE ALREADY_!” Mingi roars, standing up, with his fists clenched and his chest visibly pushed towards them in an aggressive stance.

Yunho jumps to hold him back and mutters something to his ear, while Mingi keeps his eyes fixed on the three boys and gasps for air with his mouth wide opened, tears unstoppably streaming down his face.

Yeosang grabs San’s hand and looks at him only to notice that he’s crying as well, his lower lip trembling. At that sight, Wooyoung rushes to hug San as well, and pulls the both of them up, pushing their backs towards the door.

“We’ll find our way out” growls Wooyoung in a cavernous voice, staring at Mingi with a deadly glare.

  
  


* * *

The next day at their athletics’ trainings, Yeosang is more worried than ever.

Him, Wooyoung, Yunho and Mingi are all in the University’s team, but him and Woo haven’t noticed Mingi coming and, to be honest, they don’t even know how to behave with him whether he should show up. 

All they know is that San has spent the whole evening and night before sobbing, locked in his bedroom, without letting anyone in, refusing to eat or drink anything. Yeosang has seen Wooyoung being furious a bunch of times, and none of them can be compared to this one. There’s something that really pulls a trigger deep inside of him when it comes to San, he can’t stand to see him suffer and instinctively becomes overprotective of him, so Yeosang doesn’t even dare to imagine what could possibly happen between him and Mingi, now that he's the reason why San has been so wrecked.

Before their training begins, Yeosang takes a look at the bleachers.

There’s quite some students and, as usual, since he’s known for obsessing over sports shoes’ design, Hongjoong is sitting there, staring at them.

That’s how Mingi and him met, the previous year, and one could say that there, in that stale, smelly gym, is where it all began.

Right before they begin, Mingi comes out of the locker room. 

Yeosang notices how there’s something off in his expression: his mouth is tensed in the one that wishes to be a bright smile, as usual, but the light in his eyes is dimmed and his lashes are wet. 

He cried. 

He would like to do something, he would like to talk to him, to ask him if there’s anything he can do, because he feels guilty for how they shoved the truth in his face the previous evening, and if he knows Mingi well enough, like he does, he would only end up making things worse. 

He can clearly see how Mingi’s struggling so much to look at his best that he can’t ruin it all for him. 

When he looks at Hongjoong, he sees something weird in him as well: he’s…waiting? 

It’s like the boy can’t look away from them, impatient to receive the usual nod Mingi does with his head, pointing in his direction, except this time Mingi seems to be determined not to acknowledge his presence at all. 

They begin to train, and the atmosphere is as tense as ever. 

Mingi doesn’t interact with anyone really, except for Yunho, completely ignoring him, Wooyoung and their teammates’ cheering, to which he would usually react with loud roars, screams and joyful dance moves. 

This time, he just holds himself to perfectly execute their circuit’s exercises the best he can, with more effort than Yeosang has ever seen him put into anything, and then moves back to his place, waiting for the next to come as he jogs on his feet. It’s like that until, all of a sudden, right before he’s meant to vault the pole, Hongjoong screams “Go Song Mingi! Song Mingi, you’re the best!”. 

Mingi freezes and slowly turns around. 

That’s when he looks at him for the first time that day. 

He calmly walks towards thebleachers, all eyes on him, while Hongjoong has the face of someone who has just seen a ghost, and just stares at him getting closer, dead in the eyes. 

Then, after a few seconds of silence, Mingi finally speaks. 

“Yeah, Kim Hongjoong. I’m the best. I’m the best, and you can go suck this.” He says, as he rummages in the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out a necklace, which he throws at him with the same force with which he would have thrown a javelin. 

Hongjoong gasps as he brings his hands in front of his face to prevent it from hitting him, instantly serrating his fingers around the silver chain. 

Then, he takes a better look at the charm dangling from the necklace, the same charm Mingi has been wearing for the whole year: a small, silver wing. 

“It came as a couple’s thing, you know? Those fucking cheesy necklaces one buys to the one he loves. I got these ones for us, thinking that one day, when you would have finally said something nice to me, or smiled to me, or even noticed that I’m not the idiot you think I am, I would have given you the matching one and asked you out. I have been waiting for you to do any of those things for months, Hongjoong, almost a year. Now I even hate seeing it around my neck. I thought that loving you would’ve given me wings, that’s why I chose them. But maybe it’s going to be useful anyway, because I really wish to see you spread yours to get the fuck out of my sight.”

He doesn’t even take the time to savour the shock and disruption on Hongjoong’s face, because the first thing that Mingi does is turn around and run towards Yeosang and Wooyoung, with an embarrassed and grieved expression.

“I’m sorry for yesterday, guys. I genuinely, honestly, completely am.”

Mingi reaches out to shake their hands with a shy smile, but when it comes to Wooyoung, Yeosang sees his friend grabbing it firmly and scrunching it in his grip.

“You better fucking apologise to San, or the next thing you know is I’ll crush your face against the wall.”


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is anything the matter?” He dares to ask, with slight disbelief: a few hours before he would have been mercilessly mocking him without even giving it a second thought, and now there he is, walking on eggshells, scared that the slightest alteration in his voice or a word out of place could scare him off and break the frail, magical, blissful atmosphere among them.  
> “Nothing, I… I was just thinking.” Yeosang mutters, his head low, eyes lost staring at the ground.  
> “Mind to share with the class?” He turns towards him, resting one arm on top of the bench’s backrest and casually crossing his legs, one foot waddling and drawing circles in the air, disguising his real nervousness. Seonghwa waits for him to answer, tensely waiting for Yeosang to look at him.  
> “I was just thinking that the two of us are not that different, after all, and it… It scares me.”  
> “It scares me because I’m afraid I might like it.” Yeosang admits, under his breath, with his usual, disarming honesty.  
> But Seonghwa’s ears are too needy, too eager to hear.  
> “And what are you gonna do about it, Yeosang?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my little dandelions!  
> Finally, the second chapter is here.  
> I'm sorry for having forced you to wait so long, but, as you will see, this is quite a massive update, so I hope you will be able to make some room for forgiveness in your heart.  
> I really hope you will enjoy you read and, shall that be the case, please leave kudos or a comment at the end, it would really mean the world to me.  
> Also, if you want to keep up with my other works and/or wish to interact with me, you can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/persefoneregina)!!
> 
> Have a nice read, everyone.  
> I love you with all of my being.

January, 1985.

It’s about 4:30 p.m. and the clock on top of the door keeps ticking with an unbearably annoying noise.

For Seonghwa, who’s still hangover from the previous night, that day has been a stillicide.

He can feel his head thumping at the temples with every tick of the lancets.

He squints his eyes every now and then, trying to kick away the drowsiness and to better tolerate the yet faint illumination of the table lamp on his desk, unsuccessfully.

Everything seems to be overstimulating his senses: he’s annoyed by the seams of his silk shirt itching on his chest, he can’t stand the sound of his professor tapping the butt of his pencil on the desk, his own usually pleasantly inebriating leathery perfume has him on the brink of throwing up and the very thought of eating something chokes his throat, even though he hasn’t eaten anything since the previous evening.

“Seonghwa?” The deep voice of his Economy professor suddenly shakes him from his thoughts of regret and boredom.

“Sir?” Seonghwa asks with a surprised tone, still slightly confused from the sudden call to reality.

“Take a break, I see you’re exhausted. Tell me the truth… -Professor Yoo inquisitively gazes at Seonghwa from his desk, lowering his thick glasses, a gesture usually meaning he’s dead serious which makes the student shiver, probably out of some past memories of his Economy exams-...Have you been pulling all-nighters in order to study?”

Seonghwa feels his jaw dropping as he tries to think of a proper answer as fast as he can.

Should he lie? Well, as a matter of fact he definitely cannot tell him the truth. 

_Sorry Sir, I have been making out with a random guy at this club until 5:00 a.m._ surely is not an appropriate answer, but then again, what else could he say? 

A flare of heat rushes from his chest up to his neck, to his cheeks, to his ears, flushing Seonghwa’s otherwise beautifully light golden complexion.

He tries to mouth something, but ends up babbling empty vowels that fall into the nothingness of the heavy embarrassment hovering in the room.

“I know what a hard worker you are, Seonghwa. You are doing great. You have two more exams left, right? Business Law for Fashion and… Creative Design? Am I right?” Professor Yoo asks, mindlessly, while, scrabbling on the small pile of papers in front of him.

“Y-yes, Sir, that is correct… But I promise those exams are not distracting me whatsoever from my schedule, I’m fully focused on my thesis and…” Seonghwa answers in a rush, trying to push back the sudden memory of the tongue of that guy he met last night running all over his chest and neck, of his hands holding his hips so tight that he could actually feel them sinking in his flesh, of his cheap cologne… His cheap cologne, aka the biggest turn off Seonghwa has ever experienced. That guy smelled like his grandpa after shaving. He couldn’t bring himself to bang with someone who smelled like his grandpa. That would have been just conscious self harm, and Seonghwa honestly doesn’t need any further trauma when it comes to men. All he knows is that he likes his dates how he likes his coffee: short, mildly sweet and devastatingly hot. And about coffee… An espresso right now would be perfect. 

“Seonghwa, you’re spacing out. -Once again, Professor Yoo’s voice brings him back from his daydreams.- I know you’re very focused on your deadlines and that you have everything under control, you don’t have to reassure me. I’m just scared that, centered as you are on your duties, you might lose sight of your wellbeing in the process. Now, since the students who have failed the Intro Econ exam will be here in thirty minutes, take a break. Get some air, grab yourself a coffee, put yourself back together. I need you to be focused.”

Seonghwa timidly stands up and slowly walks towards the wall hanger to wear his camel coat. He doesn’t even dare to look at his teacher, feeling to ashamed to raise his gaze in his direction. That man genuinely likes him and thinks so highly of him, and there he is, unable to tell him the truth, tricking him into believing he’s something that he truly is not. Maybe because of the hangover, maybe because of his mind guilt tripping him, Seonghwa feels nauseous and mentally agrees with his professor on one thing: he needs to get some fresh air. 

“Thank you, Sir. Should I bring you something as well, Sir?” He fakes a smile and, eventually, looks at Professor Yoo: busy as he is working on those tests he must be exhausted as well. How selfish was it of him to just assume that he wouldn’t have needed his help? As an aspiring assistant professor he should have known better.

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Seonghwa, but I assume Hwanwoong will be joining us shortly with his usual homebrewed coffee thermos, and for as terrible as it tastes, I wouldn’t want to offend him by declining it.” Professor Yoo winks at him and both laugh at the thought of Hwanwoong’s horrible coffee. 

Eventually, Seonghwa walks out of the office, with a dim smile on his face.

He’s a lucky guy: his family loves him, he’s about to graduate in Fashion Studies with a thesis in Fashion Economics, he’s adored by his relator, is lucky enough to have been selected as an apprentice assistant professor together with the best colleague he could have ever hoped for, has the best, funniest, smartest friend in the whole campus. 

So why does he always feel like there’s something aching, deep within? 

Why is it never enough? 

Why does he end up doing things he’s ashamed of, things he regrets the moment after he’s done them, things that make him feel dirty and disgusting? 

Why is there such an appetite for self destruction lurking inside of him?

Seonghwa takes a deep breath, pressing with this fingers at the center of the forehead to push the pain, both physical and psychological, away.

He enters the campus’ bar, almost deserted at that time of the day, and orders his usual double espresso, which he drinks in one shot after sweetening it with a teaspoon of brown sugar. At one of the tables he notices that boy San, from the Dumb Blondes, sitting with Yunho. He knows Yunho pretty well, as a matter of fact he is one of the best students of the Intro Econ course. Seonghwa knows that Professor Yoo is very proud of his results and, honestly, he’s impressed as well, even though he can’t help but wonder why on Earth would such a brilliant, smart student hang out with anyone of those three losers. Out of pure curiosity, Seonghwa sits down at a table nearby and begins to fumble with the papers inside of his leather briefcase, trying to look busy as ever.

“...You know what I think about this whole matter, Sanie. I’ve told you a thousand times.” Seonghwa hears Yunho saying, with a slight note of anger in his voice. 

Anger? Impatience? And what does “this whole matter” mean, anyway?

“You should just speak up. You should tell him, once and for all, how you feel about him. What’s there for you to lose, anyway? At this point you’ve spent the last year with an aching heart, bearing this secret, hiding your feelings, running away from a healthy, adult confrontation and sitting on your fucking sofa, rotting, while he hangs out on nightstands with whatever guy…”

Ah, nightstands with random guys, now _that_ rings a bell for Seonghwa. 

They must be talking about the other one of the Dumb Blondes, not the mouthy one, Yeosang, the other one, Thighs, as him and Hongjoong call him. 

What’s his name again? Woo- _something_? 

Has Thighs been nasty to Baby Face? 

Trouble in paradise? 

Seonghwa is intrigued. 

He checks his watch: there’s still time. 

He runs through the sheets, making sure to be noisy and to appear so focused on his job that no one would ever even suspect that he’s actually eavesdropping that juicy conversation… After all, it won’t hurt to have a little fun after a whole day of hard work.

“I know, hyung, trust me, all these things are very clear to me in my mind, but I still can never seem to be strong enough to muster the strength, nor the presence of mind, for that matter, to face him. Everytime Wooyoung goes out with someone new, I can’t bring myself to say anything. - _Ah, yes, Wooyoung, that’s the name_ , Seonghwa thinks while he carefully listens to San speaking- I just feel my heart wither whenever I see him walking out the door every weekend, knowing that somewhere there is someone who is allowed to touch him, to hold him, to kiss him… And not like I do. Anything but like I do…” 

Poor Baby Face must be on the verge of tears by the way the words seem to be slipping out of his mouth, broke by hiccups and deep breaths, that sound more and more like sobs with every second going by. 

Ah, Thighs, you _meanie_ … Seonghwa can’t help but smirk with an involuntary dash of sympathy for Wooyoung, probably for the first and last time in his life.

He doesn’t understand all that fuss about feelings anyway: what’s the whole point of growing fond of someone, letting them close, allowing them to become a significant part of your life, only to end up losing them?

Relationships are pointless acts of pure masochism.

No matter the protagonists, the final act is every time the same.

Falling in love is just like handing someone a gun and showing them where to shoot while wishing they won’t do that, even though you’re fully aware that at a certain point they will: absolutely nonsensical, definitely stupid and inevitably cruel. 

To Seonghwa, who has seen it happen a lot, the ride is just not good enough to justify its ending.

While he got caught into his own considerations, the sound of San crying brings him back to reality. So he _really_ is heartbroken…

Without an apparently sufficient reason, Seonghwa feels bad and kind of guilty for taking a wicked kind of pleasure in eavesdropping that conversation. After all, even though he might not understand or share the same views as him, doesn’t mean he can’t empathize with the boy, and maybe, just maybe, there’s this little inner voice that makes Seonghwa feel like he should fix his karma.

He stores the papers back into the briefcase and elegantly turns around, gently tapping on San’s shoulder to offer him his linen handkerchief with a timid smile.

“Sorry… I do not mean to barge in, but I heard you crying and I couldn’t help myself.”

San looks at him with a suspicious expression for a while, his eyes red and filled with tears. It takes him a few seconds to actually accept his handkerchief and use it to dry his eyes, but he eventually does and even smiles back.

“Thank you and sorry for making such a scene…” San says, holding his face down, probably embarrassed.

“Oh no, please, don’t. And you can keep the handkerchief, even though I hope you won’t need it ever again.” Seonghwa answers kindly, while carefully adjusting his chair to face the table where Yunho and San are seating in the most silent way possible. “May I… Just for a second?” He notices how he’s only asking after already joining them and a sudden flush tints his cheeks. He really doesn’t mean to be intrusive, and yet there he is. Being intrusive.

“Sure, I can’t see why not.” Yunho answers with a piercing touch of sarcasm, raising his eyebrow to silently scold Seonghwa. “But I don’t know how much you can be of actual help, since we’re talking relationships which, that I’m aware of, aren’t really your thing.”

Good God, can’t he be allowed some slack every now and then? Why does every single soul in that fucking campus want to put him in that “fuckboy” box and never expect anything nice or gentle of him? Why do people, even the one he’s sure to be friends with, or at least in good terms with, constantly push him into a frame and expect nothing more than a reductively and humiliatingly specific pattern of behavior? How is he even supposed to prove being something more, something different than what everyone else believes him to be, if every time the chance occurs he gets mocked, belittled or refused with such a condescending tone?

Seonghwa takes a deep breath, forcing the words arising on the tip of his tongue back. This is not about him or his pride. He has decided to intervene because he genuinely felt sorry for San, and so shall he do. So he bites his lips, sucks in a breath of air, challengingly raises his brows at Yunho and pushes himself closer to the table by holding it on its edges, trying to put all of the frustration he’s feeling into that grip on the metallic surface.

“Well, no. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot be of any help _at all_. I have some experience and I have an ace or two up my sleeve. I may not be proficient in relationships, but I'll be damned if I don't know how to get a man. And you look like you might need a tip or two on…”

Seonghwa takes a second to thoroughly look at San: he’s wearing a pink fuzzy sweater with little white hearts, his haircut looks like the 60’s called and they want it back, his jeans are a complete, plain, two sizes bigger disaster, and he doesn’t even need to see him undressed to guess that he’s the type that wears large white boxers and a probably itchy, woolen, yellowed undershirt. This is gonna be a challenge worth of the name, indeed. But San’s got the face, the body structure and Seonghwa for some reason believes that, somehow, there’s still hope for that strange inbreed between a handsome boy and a care bear.

“...Well, on everything. The first thing you wanna do to capture the attention of someone who takes you for granted is make. Him. Regret. It.” Seonghwa speaks slowly but with extreme confidence, enough to get San’s interest and to make Yunho’s expression switch from total distrust to slight support of his point of view.

“You may think that yours is not the case, but trust me, deep down men are all the same: they’re just big babies who like to have their toys in plain sight, where they can see them, but then they will leave them on the shelf as soon as they get a new one. Now, you’re nobody’s toy, am I right?” He asks, with an increasingly motivational tone, never interrupting the eye contact with San, actually getting closer to him and monopolizing his concentration to be as convincing as he can.

And Seonghwa does know how to be convincing.

“Right!” San answers, nodding with his head and with the weirdest pout of determination on his face. 

God, he’s dealing with a baby…

“Neat. Now what we're going to do is get this message across loud and clear. First off, we need to give you a little makeover, just to mess up a bit with his confidence and to boost yours. I guess you're not really aware of this, but let me tell you something: you know what you are? You're one hot piece of ass." Seonghwa goes on, stressing on every single word of his last phrase, like an ancient oracle revealing a shocking prophecy, whose unveiling could possibly subvert the future of mankind.

“I… I’m a what?” asks San, gasping for breath with his eyes wide opened in shock.

“You’re a hot piece of ass. Repeat after me, San.” Seonghwa says, grabbing San’s small hands and cupping them into his own with an encouraging expression. 

“I am…” Mutters the younger boy, blushing ever so slightly and choking a giggle, while Seonghwa nods at him, supportive as a cheerleaders’ trainer “A..Hot piece...Of ass.”

“Exactly. See? This is what I call _positive self affirmation_ . You have to start _feeling_ yourself, and I mean really feeling the gorgeous, handsome, sexy man you are… You have to feel all these things, you have to become confident in what your mama gave you, because you know what’s the sexiest thing out there, the one thing that’ll make everyone drool at your feet? Confidence. Confidence is the ultimate aphrodisiac. So we’re gonna give you a new wardrobe and we need to get you a date, because believe me, nothing is going to convince you of how irresistible you are more than a date, and nothing is going to make them realise what they’re missing out more than that. No feelings, no complications and no commitments. Just a good time with a cute guy. Do you have anyone in mind you’d like to hang out with?” Seonghwa notices how now both Yunho and San are quite enticed with his plan and cannot help but give himself a moral pat on his back, satisfied with the result of his speech, but most of all with the way he has been able to make their emotions shift from suspicion to complete and absolute trust.

Seonghwa has always been really good in convincing people of his capabilities, he’s always had this strange charisma that makes him come across as someone reliable and who knows his way around things, which has come very handy in many different circumstances in his life… But nothing tops the satisfaction of having people, who otherwise wouldn’t have given him a penny, change their mind about his actual value. Whenever that happens, he literally gets a braingasm, and right now Seonghwa can hear angelic choirs echoing in his head with glee.

Yunho bites his lower lip, like someone who’s over cautiously questioning whether to speak up, and taps for a while on the table, before making up his mind.

“Well, there’s this one friend of mine who’s been kinda wooing you, Sanie, for a while now, but I have always been vague about the matter. But if you’d like to I can hook you up with him.” 

San looks at him, then at Seonghwa, then back at him with his jaw dropped.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!?” San asks, quite irritated and most definitely surprised.

“I thought you wouldn’t be interested and that you’d have turned him down right away! How could have I known?” Yunho desperately tries to justify himself, even though it’s quite clear that there’s no need for that, since San looks like the kind of person who wouldn’t be even able to be mad at Charles Manson himself.

The two of them go on with their bickering for a little more, while Seonghwa checks his watch: he has to go back or he’ll be late.

“Now, now, see? This whole situation is basically fixing itself! -Seonghwa says, lifting a corner of his mouth in a hinted yet satisfied smile- Now, I have to go to meet some students who failed Professor Yoo’s test. I’ll leave you my number, I’m usually home by 8 p.m., so that you can call me and we can schedule your makeover, alright?”

“A-alright… Thank you so much Seonghwa, you’ve been… Really nice to me.” San puts away the piece of paper where Seonghwa has scribbled his phone number in his pocket and smiles brightly. Both him and Yunho wave him goodbye as he leaves, rushing back to his professor’s room.

When Seonghwa walks back into the room, his colleague assistant, Hwanwoong, has just arrived, while Professor Yoo is missing.

“Well hello gorgeous!” Hwanwoong greets him with his usual cheerful voice, throwing his arms around Seonghwa’s neck and pulling him in a hug. He smells like vanilla and orange blossoms, sweet, floral and persistent. A good sum of his personality. 

“Will you look at yourself, you look glorious!” His colleague pulls apart from the hug and looks at him from head to toe “I love the coat and how it matches the shirt, very classy.”

“Thanks! You look amazing too, maybe even too good for this incredibly tedious afternoon. You’re going to break some students’ heart today, you know?” Seonghwa says, winking at Hwanwoong. As a matter of fact, Hwanwoong always looks impeccable. Great sense of fashion, very good body and an incredible care for detail are what make of him one of the most desired, admired and outstanding students of the whole campus: everyone wants to be his friend, to talk to him, to gain a smile from him or even just a glance of approval, not to mention how most of the guys have tried to ask him out or to hit on him, at times even not so gracefully. He has never accepted, not even once. Hwanwoong may come across as a very frivolous and maybe at some times even shallow individual, but the truth is that one is just a facade, because those who really know him, like Seonghwa and Hongjoong, are aware of what a strong-willed, determined, hard-working and brilliant individual he is, what a sweet and darling friend he can be and how truly empathetic, sensitive, kind and playful his nature truly is. 

They both sit down at their desks and Seonghwa, almost absent mindedly, begins to tell him about the whole San thing and how he has decided to help him out.

“Wait, do you really mean you want to pay for a whole hairdresser and shopping spree for a guy you barely know just you’ve seen him crying? Excuse me, who are you and what did you do to Park Seonghwa? -Hwanwoong says with an amused laughter, but Seonghwa doesn’t even bother smiling.- Well, you know what? Why not. It’s nice to have a charity project every now and then. I wanna join and I’ll share the expenses with you. What do you say?”

“Are you for real now?” Seonghwa cannot believe his ears: he obviously knows how generous Hwanwoong is, but this is definitely something he didn’t expect of him. 

“Of course I am! I know how delighted you are to make your old man pay for being an asshole by basically throwing his money away, but this legit sounds like a good deed and if I can make someone happy I can’t see why I wouldn’t.” As he speaks, Hwanwoong takes out his infamous coffee thermos from his bag and serves himself a cup of coffee which, oddly enough, doesn’t smell like a sulphureous pool but like actual coffee.

“Fancy a cup? I know you usually don’t accept any caffeine after at most 3 p.m. because of your sleep schedule, that will consequently impact on your skincare or whatever, and plus _unfortunately_ today I’ve had to have it filled at the bar, since I didn’t have time to make it at home, but in case you do want some you’ll have to _settle_ for this…” He says, with a heartbroken voice, while pointing at Seonghwa’s cup standing on his desk.

“You know what? I’ll have it today. I’m already sleepy and we haven’t even started with the students’ meeting yet…” 

Seonghwa picks up his cup and lightly sits down on a corner of his desk, allowing Hwanwoong to pour him the coffee.

They silently drink, taking small sips followed by satisfied sounds, until they hear the door’s handle click: Professor Yoo walks back into the room and greets them with a nod of his head, before sitting down and rummaging through the failed exam papers in front of him. He divides them in three smaller stacks, according to the final result, handing the ones with the grades closest to sufficiency to the two of them and keeping the worst ones for himself.

“Very well, dear boys. This is our first time working all together during a finals’ evaluation, so I will explain to you what your job will consist of for the next trimester. You will now have to meet the students who didn’t make it this time, but who are nevertheless most likely to pass the exam on the next session. You’ll discuss with each of them the motivations of their failure and come up with a one on one tutoring plan for each of them, then, from the next week on, you are expected to give them individual lessons on the parts of the programme they didn’t understand. You have been assigned six students each, which means you’ll work two hours per week with each one of them. You will have to give me regular reports on the teaching activities you have planned for each of them. If you struggle with someone of them, please let me know: I will remove them from the individual course and will move them into my collective remedial course, but, needless to say, this will affect your final evaluation as assistants. I expect those twelve students to pass the next test with the highest grades. Now, to work. The boys are already outside. Make a list with the students you have been assigned and call them, one by one. Let’s do our best… And what do we always say?” Professor Yoo looks at Seonghwa and Hwanwoong, expecting an answer from them.

“Education is elevation, not evaluation!” They both answer with a courtesy smile on their faces, hiding away the crippling anxiety that, Seonghwa is sure, they’re both feeling at the perspective of failing their Professor.

Education is not evaluation… Well it is not, until it is. Until your whole academic career is reduced to praying that those twelve dudes won’t be dumb as rocks and actually be able to succeed in an embarrassingly easy test.

Hwanwoong and Seonghwa look at each other for a second and they exchange a terrified look, Woong even mouths a silent _what the fuck?_ to which he answers with a confused shrug, before checking the tests on their desk and scribbling names on their notebooks.

Seonghwa quickly writes the names down, until he arrives to the fourth paper. He whispers an inaudible _fuck, fuck, fuck_ , that clearly isn’t as inaudible as he believes, since Hwanwoong calls for his attention with a snap of his fingers.

“What?” he murmurs, trying not to get caught.

“I know this one…” Answers Seonghwa, still whispering, with the most annoyed expression possible and rolling his eyes so hard he could almost see his own brain.

“Shit… Is he that bad?” Asks Hwanwoong, worried. They must succeed with this tutoring, or they will have to basically say goodbye to their places as professor assistants once and for all. There’s so much at stake and Seonghwa, for the first time in his whole academic career, feels completely despaired.

“I’m fucked.” He tells his friend, as he bites his lips so hard that he can taste the blood. Out of all the students he could have had assigned, it really had to be that one… He takes a deep breath and nervously swings through his fingers the pencil he’s holding for a few seconds, then, as soon as he’s -not at all effortlessly- pushed back the impending panic attack, he proceeds to scribble that name and the last one down. He has to be as professional as he humanly can, he tells himself. After all, if he allows his own antipathies influence him now, how is he ever going to be able to become a professor worth of the name?

So he sucks it up and walks out of the room.

There, he finds thereabouts twenty-five students. Some of them are leaning against the wall, other ones are sitting on the wooden bench placed just a little bit further from the door, some of them must be friends since they’re immersed in their chitchatting, some others look miserable, and other ones are just plain annoyed. 

Then, he meets a familiar face. Far from anyone else, with an absolutely inexpressive face, but with a pair of horrible dark circles under his eyes, that give away the familiar sleepless nights, main characteristic of the finals’ month, stands Kang Yeosang, the mouthy Dumb Blonde. 

“Seo Changbin?” He calls with the most confident tone he can muster, while one of the boys who were busy talking turns around, almost in shock, and walks towards him.

“Here.” The boy answers, while fidgeting with the hem of his woolen coat.

“Please, come in and sit at the desk in the center, if you may. I will be to you in a second.” Seonghwa says in a very calm and polite tone, before going back to the other students. He peeks on the piece of paper he’s holding in his hands, then looks back at the students.

“I will make a quick roll call. Once one of you walks out, the following one will come in, so please try to remember the order in which I am going to call you. So, we have Seo Changbin, who is inside, then there’s Lee Chan, Park Woojin, Jo Gyehyeon and Kang Yeosang.” His eyes and Yeosang’s meet for a fraction of a second, and for as much as Seonghwa tries to hold himself, he can’t help but feel the weirdest sensation of both visceral anger and some kind of attraction towards that boy. 

Yeosang doesn’t even bother speaking up, he just lazily pulls up his hand and waves at him with a sassy smirk, meaning something like “what are you gonna do now?”, that straight up makes him want to slap him, but lowkey also makes him picture himself pinning that little brat against the wall of that very corridor and sucking that smile away from his lips, until he’ll make him sorely regret his cockiness. 

Seonghwa rolls his tongue in his mouth and sucks in his cheeks, ticking all the names on his list, then lifts up his fiery gaze once more on all of his students and allows it to dwell on Yeosang’s face for a few more seconds, just the amount of time he needed to notice a faint blush blossom on the apples of his cheeks. He can’t help but internally gloat about the reaction he just got from the pretty boy: he loves to engage in that kind of psychological sparrings, even more so if he ends up winning.

“Very well. I’m glad you’re all here. While you wait, you may want to recall which ones were, for you, the hardest parts to understand about the programme. That would be all for now, thank you for your kind attention.”

When eventually Yeosang’s turn is about to arrive, Seonghwa doesn’t really know how to feel: first of all because he’s hella tired, second of all because he’s definitely not looking forward to this meeting, and last but not least because he just feels like going back home, take a bath, forget about the grandpa smelling dude and call it a day.

He pulls out Yeosang’s exam paper from the pile standing in front of him and checks out the mistakes his professor marked, smiling for whatever reason. He’s sure most of those errors are just due to distraction or nervousness, since the theoretical part is completely correct. Apparently, he has to change his mind: maybe if the boy learns to use a calculator and to copy the exact numbers, he stands a chance, but that still remains to be seen. He could have copied the theoretical part and failed the exercises. He could have had luck. There’s plenty of possibilities.

His attention is recalled to the present by a coughing and the screeching sound of the chair in front of his desk being dragged.

“Jesus Christ can’t you even raise the chair? Were you brought up by savages?” Seonghwa asks under his breath, rolling his eyes while Yeosang sits down in front of him and looks at him with a challenging smirk and a raised eyebrow.

“I’ve been brought up by a family that used felt pads under the chairs’ legs.” Yeosang answers, almost laughing at his own wit and making Seonghwa smile.

“You’re smart, Mouthy, I’ll give you that. But apparently- Seonghwa says, waving the test paper in front of Yeosang’s face- Not smart enough. Now, I know you love to run your tongue but see if you can concisely tell me what is it that you didn’t get, so that we can schedule our first tutoring lesson.”

“Well, I… To be honest, I don’t know. I mean, I’m good at maths. I study engineering, for fuck’s sake!” Yeosang whispers, trying not to be heard by Professor Yoo.

“ _Language_. -Seonghwa scolds him- Listen, I’ve checked your test. It doesn’t seem to have major fallacies in the applications of the formulas, the theory is perfect, your mistakes seem to be all due to distraction. You’ve had two hours for this test, so I don’t think you’ve had any problems handling time, which leads me to the question: why on Earth would someone apparently smart like you panic about the honestly dumbest economy exam out there?”

There is a moment of silence, in which Yeosang and Seonghwa look at each other. For the first time there don’t seem to be harsh feelings between them. Seonghwa could say many things about the boy, but he’s not dumb: this has to be admitted, and right now he’s way too immersed in his professional role to detract him out of pure personal pleasure. It wouldn’t be fair to be mean when he’s in a favourable position, and even though he’s very much sure that Yeosang only sees him as an entitled bitch, he still has some moral values which he stands for, one of those being fairness, especially when it comes to doing his job. He sees Yeosang look around the room, everywhere besides from his face, as his eyes get glassy. 

“It’s just that… it’s the third time I try to pass this exam.” He manages to mutter.

Seonghwa immediately understands where the whole situation is going to end and the only thing that he has in his mind is a huge red light alerting him of the incoming danger. He needs to prevent the disaster. 

“You know what? Let’s get out of here. You must be tired. Wait for me outside.” Seonghwa’s voice is soft and gentle as he speaks to Yeosang, placing on hand on top of the other boy’s ones and looking right into his eyes. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Seonghwa stands up and walks up to professor Yoo’s desk, asking for his permission to leave, which is accorded to him by a quick and vigorous nod of his head. As he proceeds to store all the student’s papers, his notebook and other few pieces of stationery back into his briefcase, Hwanwoong sends off his student as well and gets close to Seonghwa.

“Fancy a drink?” Hwanwoong asks, as quietly as he can, since Professor Yoo is still discussing to one of the students who failed the test.

“Unfortunately I can’t. I haven’t done with the last one, but he was about to cry and I couldn’t continue, so I’ll try to talk to him outta here…. Maybe he’ll be calmer if it’s just me, you know?” Seonghwa answers, brushing a hand through his hair after putting on his coat.

“Oooh, I see. Is he cute? I didn’t check him out…” Hwanwoong says with a wink, as he reaches for his scarf and calmly works it with his hands, fluffing up the fabric at the front.

“I guess.” Seonghwa responds with a sigh, trying not to give away too much of his thoughts about Yeosang. He hasn’t decided what to think about him yet, but saying he’s not attractive would be too much of a blatant lie. 

“Ok then, I see you, Hwa… I’ll give you some advance, so that you can collect your snack all by yourself.” For as much as he tries to look innocent, Hwanwoong can’t hold his smile while speaking and neither can Seonghwa.

His snack… Now _that’s_ a silly thought. Or is it?

Seonghwa brushes off that fantasy before turning the door’s handle, making sure that his expression is as neutral and collected as possible.

When he walks out, he is greeted by an embarrassed Yeosang suddenly popping up from the bench he has been sitting on. Seonghwa makes way for him along the corridor and down the stairs. They walk quietly, their mutual displease doesn’t contribute for sure to help breaking the ice, and yet here they are, forced to work together to achieve a common goal that, nonetheless, doesn’t feel as important as sorting out their issues. He surely can’t work with someone who despises him that much, this much Seonghwa knows, but while his pride keeps demanding an apology, his self consciousness also insists with the unpleasantly scorching awareness that it’s all because of him and his mean jokes. A part of Seonghwa would very much want to excuse himself, and yet another one is definitely not keen on having that kind of conversation. Moreover, he cannot seem to find the words, so he just stays silent, thinking about a way to make that whole mess of a situation right.

When they arrive at the campus’ main boulevard, they sit down on a beautiful iron bench, next to each other. They’re close. Way too close. Seonghwa can smell Yeosang’s light perfume: it smells like talc, Marseille soap and lavender, gentle but persistent and faintly inebriating. 

“I know you dislike me, Seonghwa. Trust me, I do. I don’t know why, really, but I have felt it from the first time we met. You’ve always been arrogant, hostile and quite unpleasant, towards me, my friends and basically everyone who is not you and your little group of minions. But you’ve been nice to me today. I don’t know and I don’t even want to find out if you felt obliged in any way to act like that, just let me tell you this: thank you. I owe you one.” Yeosang’s voice is smooth like a velvet robe, smooth and soft, and for the first time he’s speaking to him without being fired up by anger or resentment. Seonghwa looks at him, while he just mindlessly stares into the sun setting on the horizon, and presses his lips together. Regret. Shame. Humiliation. All these feelings crowd Seonghwa’s mind. No one had ever spoken to him that directly, yet with such unflinching composure and perfect politeness. He feels so ashamed of himself and his childish attitude that, for the first time in years, he’d like for the ground to swallow him or to disappear on the spot. Of course he knows this would be the best time to come clean and give an explanation for his actions, but for some reason the words just don’t come to mind, every apology dissolving itself on its way to his mouth. Seonghwa covers up his face with his hands, taking a deep breath and letting his eyes tear up a bit when meeting the bright, blinding light of the sunset.

“You’re welcome. -Seonghwa says in a thin breath- I… You’re right. I’m all of that, and worse. I’m a terrible person and I have no excuse for that.”

He would actually have plenty of excuses for the way he behaves publicly, for that mean, snobbish, self-entitled persona he has built for himself, to prevent any form of heartache to hurt him by being the one to hurt others first, to prove himself his strength by pathetically belittling others, choosing the easiest victims to viciously pick on, using his natural empathy to understand other people’s insecurities only to twist the knife where he knows it’s going to hurt the most. He would like to talk to Yeosang about his parents’ divorce, about his father systematically cheating on his mother, about how he has spent most of his life being bullied until the last day of high school, to tell him how the other kids would call him, the cruel pranks they’d play on him, the public humiliations he would have been subject to, and how he never knew how or who to ask for help. He would like to explain to Yeosang how he deeply envies him for being so unapologetically himself, in spite of all the teasing and the mockery, so strong, so brave, so resilient. But nothing comes out of his mouth. His eyes itch and he has to promptly look up and sniff, kicking back the tears where they belong, but when he turns around he sees Yeosang’s intense green eyes scrutinizing him.

“Nah. You’re not.” Yeosang says, his little teasing smirk sitting back on his lips, while the golden light sets his cheekbones and the delightfully curved bridge of his nose aglow. “Maybe a part of you wishes you were terrible. It’d be easier if you really were the way you try to act, but you’re not. You might _act_ terrible, but I don’t believe you when you say you _are_. You’re the furthest possible from being a terrible person, which makes me wonder why would a nice and gentle boy wish to come across the way you try to.”

If just a moment before Yeosang seemed to be trying to escape Seonghwa’s gaze, now it’s definitely the other way around.

“At this point I don’t even know what I am anymore. But I know you didn’t deserve such a mortification. Crying in front of a professor isn’t cute and I wouldn’t recommend it as an experience.” Seonghwa turns around to meet Yeosang’s eyes and smiles at him for the first time since they’ve met. He can see the other boy’s curiosity being aroused by his words by the way he lifts one of his brows.

“It was my first exam, ok? History of Fashion, with Professor Han. I had been waiting in that goddamned corridor for hours, I was legit drained and I just wanted to go back home, but being amongst the last students I just had to endure. I had spent the day repeating time after time all of the notes I had taken and all of the briefs I prepared. So, you know, I had studied indeed, but in spite of all my, trust me, _very meticulous_ work, when she eventually called me and I got to sit in front of her… _Nothing_. My mind had gone blank. The moment I sat on that fucking cursed chair, it felt like I couldn’t recall anything of what I knew.” Seonghwa narrates his experience with the most vibrant emotion, punctuating his phrases with hand gestures and facial expressions and eyes widening and giggles.

Yeosang giggles, too. He’s got a lovely laughter, Seonghwa thinks: it’s not loud or obnoxious, it rather sounds hushed and melodious at the same time, and the way he places his hand in front of his mouth ever so delicately is the most charming gesture he has seen in a long time, be it because of the fluidity of the movement itself, its spontaneity, the elegance of Yeosang’s slender wrist or because of the way his soft, pastel yellow sweater fell from it to gently fold itself on his forearm, revealing his beautiful, faintly golden, light skin, there’s something hypnotizing about it that has him helplessly staring. 

“What happened next?” Yeosang asks, with a gentle smile and twinkling eyes fixed on his face.

“Oh, she kept asking questions, but I was so deep in my panic attack I could barely function, let alone answer coherently! I couldn’t even hear what she said and, eventually, I felt my nerves failing me. I started to cry right in front of her, I was legit sobbing and she didn't even flinch. Not a sign of empathy, of understanding, of humanity… _Nothing_ . She stood up, opened up the door and kicked me out. I still lived with my mother, back then, but I didn’t go home that night. I didn’t have the courage to, you know, tell her I failed, let alone mentioning _how_ …” A wave of sudden sadness forces Seonghwa to shut up. His mother. All of his hard work has always been for her, to make her proud of him, to prove her she has a son worthy of her love and validation. “I couldn’t go back home to her. I couldn’t even fathom how it would have felt to look her in the eyes and tell her how miserably I had failed. I was so ashamed, angry at myself and disappointed… I wandered all night and I ended up getting drunk. It was the first time I did. I know it’s hard to believe, but I used to be very much different, back then. So anyway, I ended up completely wasted, so much that, at a certain point of the night, I didn’t even know where I was anymore. I was about to have a meltdown when I felt someone grabbing my face and snapping their fingers in front of my eyes. Everything was blurry, so it took me a while to figure that it actually was two of my classmates, Hongjoong and Hwanwoong. They figured how stoned I was, so they took me to their place and literally undressed me, threw me into the bathtub, washed me, gave me clean clothes, made me chamomile tea, and allowed me to sleep there. Wanna know a fun thing? They didn’t even know me at that time. We had barely ever even talked. And yet they rescued me and took care of me. We’ve been the best of friends since then. But anyway, the whole moral of the story is: don’t cry at an exam, if you can, otherwise you may end up with the worst hangover of your life and two loud, spirited, clingy disgraces by your side 24/7.”

“Well, I guess I already have my own couple of disgraces, so I should be out of the danger zone for as far as it concerns them.” Yeosang retaliates, and they both laugh, a lot more and louder than Seonghwa usually does. 

He breathes.

There is a comfort in talking to a stranger, a relief, that he hasn’t felt for a while. Talking to Yeosang, more specifically, has the liberating effect of being able to be brutally honest and genuinely himself, to give his truest version of his life, without having any expectations to live up to, since he’s not expected to be anything more or less than who he really is, right there, right now.

He breathes.

And then, he smiles.

For the first time, Seonghwa, who is usually very cautious and sparing with his words, thinks he could go on speaking for hours, finding the most genuine satisfaction in the way he can clearly see Yeosang’s thoughts and emotions sequence one another in his mind and on his face by his vivacious expressions. By the way his laughter dies on his lips, though, Seonghwa understands that there must be something off.

“Is anything the matter?” He dares to ask, with slight disbelief: a few hours before he would have been mercilessly mocking him without even giving it a second thought, and now there he is, walking on eggshells, scared that the slightest alteration in his voice or a word out of place could scare him off and break the frail, magical, blissful atmosphere among them.

“Nothing, I… I was just thinking.” Yeosang mutters, his head low, eyes lost staring at the ground.

“Mind to share with the class?” He turns towards him, resting one arm on top of the bench’s backrest and casually crossing his legs, one foot waddling and drawing circles in the air, disguising his real nervousness. Seonghwa waits for him to answer, tensely waiting for Yeosang to look at him. He needs that contact more than he’d like to admit, petrified at the idea of having done something off putting without even noticing.

“I was just thinking that the two of us are not that different, after all, and it… It scares me.” Eventually, the boy lifts up his head and daringly looks at Seonghwa in the eyes. The golden specks in his trembling hazel eyes glimmer whenever the sunlight hits them and Seonghwa thinks, for just a second, that he could very easily get lost in contemplation of that enchanting phenomenon for days to come without ever getting enough of it. He carefully tries to get closer to Yeosang, closer than they already were. 

If he were brave enough, he could even reach out to touch the fabric of his soft sweater. 

If he were brave enough, he could hold his hand to give him a courage he doesn’t have himself. 

There are so many things Seonghwa could do, if he were brave enough, like trying to give a name to the strange, irrational, force that pulls him towards Yeosang with unyielding power.

Seonghwa takes a deep breath and tries, unsuccessfully, to dissimulate his growing anxiety with a breathy giggle.

“Woah, you’re really making it sound like an awful thing for someone who insisted that I wasn’t that terrible just a few minutes ago -He waits for a reaction, any reaction really, from Yeosang, before speaking up again, but the wait is excruciating and, oppositely to what happened to him during his first exam, now he doesn’t seem to be capable to cage the words in his mouth for too long- Why does that scare you?”

It takes Yeosang a few seconds to answer to this one.

He looks up for a few seconds, his beautiful profile enhanced by the sunset is such a sight to see that Seonghwa normally wouldn’t even mind the actual answer, but this time… This time it’s different. This time there’s not an itching in his pants to drive him. 

This time there’s an intolerable sting to his heart that forces him to precariously wait, holding his breath, on the one that feels like a tightrope walker’s wire.

Yeosang sighs and digs his white teeth in his lower lip, before locking his eyes with Seonghwa’s ones with a sorrowful gaze.

“It scares me because I’m afraid I might like it.” Yeosang admits, under his breath, almost inaudibly, with his usual, disarming honesty.

But Seonghwa’s ears are too needy, too eager to hear them, and now that those words have been spoken, his mind promptly seizes them and carves them in his brain.

“And what are you gonna do about it, Yeosang?” 

Seonghwa can recognise the point of no return when he reaches it. He’s been there before. He’s quite acquainted with the lingering thrill of attraction, he has felt this before: the deafening beat of his heart shattering his ribcage, the glimpse of awareness glistening in the eyes right after a confession, the impalpable electricity building among two bodies, the extenuating tension and anticipation for the one that, right now, is just the projection of an actual touch. He knows where this is going. 

He knows, because whenever Seonghwa gets any close to this kind of emotions, he runs away like there was no tomorrow.

Emotions are a huge no-no.

So why is he letting them hit him?

Why are his legs refusing to do what they do best?

And why is Yeosang coming closer?

Why do his hands feel so cold against the perfect skin of his face?

Why is he looking at him _like that_?

Why does everything feel different with Yeosang?

From bickering to talking, from silently looking at him to longing for a touch, nothing, with Yeosang, seems to happen for the only one reason Seonghwa allows things to happen in his life: because he decides to let them. 

Seonghwa closes his eyes, incapable to look at the one that, he knows, is going to be the moment that will have him doomed, and a burning shiver irradiates all over his body when his lips finally meet Yeosang’s ones.

They’re small, so, so small, and yet so warm and soft.

Seonghwa can’t help but stand still for a few seconds, during which he feels Yeosang’s thin, chiseled lips leave tiny pecks all over the outline of his own.

He is playful and naive, to the point that Seonghwa can perceive his heart crumble with endearment.

Then, in an unconscious movement, he brings his hands on the back of Yeosang’s head, sinking his slender fingers into the boys fluffy hair to pull him closer, in order to reciprocate the kiss, softly pressing his plump lips against Yeosang’s ones, playfully nibbling on his upper lip as his hands run along his sharp jawline, only to hold him better and deepen the kiss. 

Seonghwa feels any previous thought getting drained from his brain by the raw need to keep on holding onto that kiss, to relishly savour the delightful taste of Yeosang’s mouth, to drag him into his longing arms by gently pulling him closer with each bite on those pretty lips of his, to caress his warm body with his hands and his wet mouth with his one,more and more lusciously at each reprise of their touch.

When they eventually part, no one of them is able to tell for how long they have actually been mindlessly indulging in each other, but Seonghwa is sure of one thing: his heart is still racing. 

If that afternoon, after seeing Yeosang’s name on that sheet paper, Seonghwa had almost lightheartedly thought that he was fucked, he surely could never have foreseen the real depth and extent of how much fucked he would have actually been.

Nonetheless, Yeosang is too handsome to think about any of the consequences and, right now, all that Seonghwa wants to do is to cradle him in his embrace, on that bench, and caress his glorious features until his hands start to apprehend them by heart, and even then he dwells in that delightful nothingness that, for some reason, makes him feel so deeply at peace.

“Seven and a half.” All of a sudden, Yeosang speaks, breaking the comfortable silence.

“Care to elaborate?” Seonghwa asks in a relaxed, low, almost sleepy voice.

“A little too sloppy. Too much saliva for my likings. That really ruins the overall effect, and that’s a shame, because you indeed seem to master the technique-”

“Yeosang! -Seonghwa interrupts him with a wet kiss on the tip of his nose, making the boy chuckle- I’m a solid nine, to say the least!”

“Good God almighty, Seonghwa… You always overestimate yourself, first you assume you have an ass I would like to spank, now you give yourself a clearly biased evaluation, how are you supposed to become a Professor’s assistant if your moral compass is this fucked up? I wouldn’t want to be examined by someone as narcissistic as you.”

“Oh really?” Seonghwa says, tracing a trail of kisses from Yeosang’s ear all the way down to the crook of his neck. 

“Mmmh… -Yeosang mewls as his hand bends back, welcomed by the firm grab of Seonghwa’s hand- Come to think of it…” He breathes out the words through some unmistakably pleased whimpers, of which Seonghwa is more than delighted to be the cause.

“Yeah, just as I thought… Weak ass.” Murmurs Seonghwa, leaning towards the ear of the boy and kissing its back.

“At least mine is just weak and not flat, unlike yours.” Yeosang keeps teasing him, playfully pinching his cheeks. 

“You’re never gonna let go of that, are you?” Seonghwa says in a dramatically loud sigh, rolling his eyes.

“Never.” Yeosang whispers back, through the smiles he doesn’t stop serving, and surges forward to steal a kiss from him.

“Fair enough. I guess we’ll have to bond over my flat ass and your disappointing grades in Economy, then.” He murmurs softly, embracing Yeosang from the back and sliding his profile against the elegant curve of the nape of his neck, while placing soft pecks here and there, on every inch of skin available. 

“Are you still afraid?” Seonghwa manages to ask.

“Should I be?” Asks back Yeosang, laying his head softly down on Seonghwa’s shoulder and caressing his cheek with one hand, lazily, with the comfort of a habit.

Seonghwa doesn’t know what to answer. Instead, he pulls him closer and deeply inhales the clean and fresh perfume of Yeosang’s skin, closing his eyes.

He doesn’t know whether Yeosang should be afraid.

But indeed he is. Even more so, he’s terrified.

_Relationships are pointless acts of pure masochism._

_No matter the protagonists, the final act is every time the same_.

So why does he want to take part to this kind of play?

“No.” He answers, under his breath.

Yeosang slips away from his arms only to turn around, facing him, and gently press his forehead onto Seonghwa’s, while the tips of their noses brush one against the other.

“Nice.” 

“Nice.”

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


When Seonghwa eventually gets home, after walking back Yeosang, through an uncountable amount of kisses and the longest chit chatting, he doesn’t know how to feel exactly.

He hasn’t felt this kind of excitement in the longest while, and there he is now, smiling like the big idiot he is as he looks for the keys into his pockets, with a swarm of butterflies fluttering in his stomach and a smug expression he cannot suppress from his face.

Nevertheless, as soon as he walks in, he’s welcomed by the hugest chaos: he hears his three flatmates screaming at each other and is almost hit by a flying pillow being thrown from the living room. Confused, he walks towards the noise, to find a purple cheeked Jongho sprawled on the sofa and Hongjoong and Hwanwoong standing in front of him.

“Hyung please… We were doing nothing wrong!” Jongho, their latest arrived flatmate, a Sport Medicine freshman, laments, clearly worn out.

“I wouldn’t call that nothing, Jongho, and plus you know we have rules inside this house-” Hongjoong begins to speak, but he is suddenly struck by a withering glare from Hwanwoong.

“You shut the fuck up as well, you have lost all your rights ever since you’ve refused Song Mingi, _shortcake_.” Hwanwoong retaliates, putting a pouting and irritated Hongjoong back in his place, before turning to Jongho. “WE HAVE RULES INSIDE THIS HOUSEHOLD! I have been fucking Kihyun around almost all town but here since the house was always booked by Seonghwa and his dick dates! Oh, here you are -Hwanwoong walks towards a shocked Seonghwa with a sigh of relief- Come on, you tell him as well. What do we do when we want to bring someone home?”

“W-we warn the others with a 24 hours advance, but… If you don’t mind, would you please fill me in with what the hell is happening?” Seonghwa shyly asks, frantically moving his eyes from Hwanwoong, to Hongjoong, to Jongho.

“Well, me and Hongjoong met after you and I parted and we came back home together. Oh, by the way, I was telling him about your little charity work of tomorrow and he’s in as well-” Hwanwoong begins to speak.

“Hwanwoong, no, sorry but Hongjoong is not coming.” Seonghwa interrupts him right away.

“But why?” Hongjoong whines, rolling his eyes.

“Because we will be taking Choi San for a makeover, and you’re most definitely out of the picture.” He answers, dryly. “You’re the one who broke Mingi’s heart, and you know they’re friends or whatever, so no, you’re not coming. End of the question.”

“So I get punished and can’t come to have fun with you guys because of Mingi but his bestie can come to our place to make out with Jongho? Sorry, that’s just not fair!” Hongjoong spits out, angry and upset.

“Sorry, what?” Seonghwa is now staring at a petrified Jongho, all curled up in a ball on the corner of the sofa. “For how long has this thing been going on, Jongho?” 

“We… Me and Yunho have been dating for a few weeks now, and today, when he walked me home, I wanted to be with him a little more, so I asked him if he wanted to come in for a coffee. I didn’t think you guys would have had anything against it…” The younger one tries to explain, hiding his face in shame and trying to pull the cuteness card.

“No one of us would have ever had anything against it, Jongho, had it been just a coffee. But what we have seen was not two lovebirds peacefully having coffee, it was rather the two of you whipping the cream, if you get what I’m saying.” Hwanwoong raises an eyebrow to Jongho, who desperately sinks his face in one of the pillows, so red he could be about to catch fire.

“Jongho what the fuck?” It’s now time for Seonghwa to raise his voice, shocked. “Not only you brought Yunho home, which was extremely disrespectful towards Hongjoong, since this is _his_ safe space, but on top of that you even… We don’t do these things in here without letting the others know, and we had been very clear about this from the beginning.”

“I got carried away! It happened! I’m sorry, ok? Can we get over this thing now, _please_?” Jongho is now practically begging for that whole discussion to end, and for as much as a side of Seonghwa finds it quite hilarious, the other one knows that it is necessary to make sure that everyone of them abides by the house rules.

“You were grinding on his thigh!” Hongjoong screams, to stress the severity of the situation. This time Hwanwoong doesn’t shut him up, though.

“I know I was, I actually live in my body! But have you seen him? Can you blame me, in all honesty?” At this point, the boy is so stressed that he doesn’t know what to do anymore to bring to an end the lecture his hyungs are giving him.

“Guys, come on, let’s cut it short. I’m fairly sure he got the lesson and that he won’t do it anymore, right Jongho?” Seonghwa sits next to him and opens his arms wide, until the bulky boy hugs him back and allows the elder to cradle him into his embrace.

“Yes, hyung. I’m sorry.” Jongho purrs as Seonghwa caresses his hair and makes sure to calm him down.

In the meantime, their phone begins to ring. Hwanwoong quickly walks to pick up and answer with an extremely cheerful voice. The conversation is quite short and there’s almost only a humming on his side. After a few seconds, he walks back into the living room and sits next to Seonghwa.

“It was San, he asked if it was ok to meet him tomorrow morning at the mall, 9:00 a.m.” He casually says, getting comfortable as he snuggles against Seonghwa’s shoulder.

“What did you say?” Seonghwa asks, lazily turning his head towards him.

“I said we’ll be there.” Hwanwoong answers as he chokes a relaxed yawn in his throat. “We should have an early night, tomorrow is going to be a field day.”

Seonghwa takes a deep breath and then looks at Hongjoong, his best friend, standing in front of them with a sad face.

“Hongjoong-ah -He calls- Did Hwanwoongie tell you that if you wanna come, you have to split with us the bills for the boy?”

All of a sudden, Hongjoong’s eyes shine with a lively glimpse of joy.

“Do you mean that…?” He gleefully questions, filled with hope.

“I mean, after that Yunho _literally came_ under our roof, I think you can come with us for shopping. It could be a chance to reunite with Mingi.” Seonghwa winks at him and as soon as Hongjoong hears that cursed name, he blushes like crazy and covers his face with his tiny hands.

“That’s the most far fetched and absurd idea you’ve ever had, Hwa, but you know what? It’s so absurd that it could probably work.” Hwanwoong states with a smirk.

“Can you guys stop insisting with this whole thing? It’s not going to work anyway, it’s been three months since we last spoke and he’s been avoiding me ever since and I don’t see what’s there to mend, since there wasn’t anything to begin with.” Hongjoong slowly slides his back against the wall, until he lands to sit down on the parquet with a defeated expression.

“Listen, if he’s been in love with you for over a year, that isn’t going to fade within a few months. Believe it or not, that’s not how love works, and even though you two have been complete assholes towards him, this doesn’t mean that someone like him may not change his mind or make room for forgiveness in his heart.” Hwanwoong goes on with his apology of Mingi, as if he really knew him personally, and doesn’t spare Hongjoong and Seonghwa some severe looks during his speech. “As for the reason why you two have been so mean to him, though, you owe me an explanation. I don’t get why would you have said such horrible things about the person you actually have a crush on, Hongjoong. Seonghwa is partially excused, like, he’s a bitch, but he’s a bitch to everyone, so what’s new? But you… Hongjoong, even though you hadn’t told anyone about the boy, why would you have said out loud such mortifying words? Even more so since there was one of his friends there. You could’ve just told Seonghwa to shut the fuck up, but no, you needed to belittle him and humiliate him behind his back. That’s not ok, you know?”

Hongjoong looks up to the ceiling, clearly trying to push back the tears.

Seonghwa tries to stand up and go hug him, but is stopped by Hwanwoong placing his arm in front of him.

“It’s his feelings. Let him express them by himself, cowboy.” He whispers in Seonghwa’s ear, making him sit back down and casually cuddle Jongho’s head some more.

“I know I fucked up big time, ok? There has not been one single day ever since that I haven’t thought back about what I said. It still feels the same: like a nightmare, like it wasn’t me speaking, like some kind of virulent force had taken over me in that moment and made me spit out those words. I never meant to say those words, but I felt so threatened and cornered by that situation that I couldn’t help it, and now I regret it so much… And don’t blame Hwa, because he couldn’t know. He was just teasing me, it’s the way we play a lot around each other, but that day I snapped because he was telling the truth and I wasn’t ready to come clean about what I feel for Mingi… God, I miss him so much. I miss him so, so, much.” Hongjoong curls up on himself, arms wrapped around his knees and head sunk in his forearms to hide the tears.

Seonghwa knows how much he hates to let others see him cry, and this awareness ties a painful knot in his stomach because, for as much as Hongjoong keeps saying that it’s not his fault, he can’t help but feel guilty about that unpleasant situation.

“I know I don’t deserve it, but I would give everything I have to be able to speak to him once more and, at least, let him know how sorry I am for what I did. He is too good for me, always has been, with that wholesome smile that makes him look like the embodiment of ray of light and those glistening eyes made out of galaxies… Every time I saw him, I used to feel such a warmth, as if the sun was rising in my heart, as if I had fireworks bursting in my chest, as if words were never sufficient to tell him how I feel about him. And now, even if I found the right things to say, even if I threaded the most beautiful ensemble of phrases to let him know how much I love him back, he rightfully would never want to listen because of how awful I’ve been. I haven’t spent a day without feeling my heart breaking when we crossed our paths at university, or without wanting to run into his arms whenever we were in the same room at the same time, or dying inside as I had to force myself not to go to see him training. I’m tired, I’m drained, I’m hurt, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to have a chance to start again and try, with all of myself, to win him over. Nothing, believe me.” Hongjoong finishes to speak and then gives in to an uncontrollable breakdown. He’s crying, and shaking, and sobbing, and gasping for air as he chokes on his tears. This time, though, Seonghwa and Jongho literally pounce off of the sofa to reach for him on the floor and wrap him in a warm embrace, rocking him back and forth, caressing his hair, drying his tears and holding one of his hands each.

In the meantime, Hwanwoong stands up and kneels in front of him, cupping his face into his hands and placing a gentle kiss on the sharp tip of Hongjoong’s nose.

“It’s ok baby shortcake, it’s ok… Hwanwoongie is going to solve this for you, ok? Now, what about we all have a cheat meal? How does pizza sound?” Hwanwoong asks, with a smile, making all the other boys smile back and nod their heads.

  
  


After dinner, before going to sleep, Hwanwoong calls Seonghwa and Jongho into his room.

“I’ve got a mission for you two. You need to drive Jongho to Yunho and Mingi’s place -he says, pointing at Seonghwa, who nods without making any questions, since he probably wants to allow the younger boy a fair share of fun...or so he thinks- And you, baby brat, have to give to your boyfriend _this_ .” Hwanwoong says with a strange light in his eyes, as he hands Jongho a black cassette in a transparent case, with a sticker on top of it reciting the name _Song Mingi_.

Seonghwa looks at him, raising an eyebrow interrogatively. 

“What’s this?” Jongho asks, voicing their thoughts.

Hwanwoong picks up the tape and puts it in his stereo. Then, after lowering the volume to the minimum, in order not to wake up Hongjoong, he plays it.

“ _I know I fucked up big time, ok? There has not been one single day ever since that I haven’t thought back about what I said…_ ”

Then, Hwanwoong presses a button to rewind the tape and stores it back into its case, choking a giggle as he stares at the shocked faces of Seonghwa and Jongho, who look at each other and then back at him a few times, mouths agape.

“You son of a…” Seonghwa starts to say, mindblown at the incredible cunningness of Hwanwoong, who gives him a boxy smile as a reply. 

“You better go now before it gets too late.” Murmurs Hwanwoong, rushing them out of their house.

They silently leave. Yunho and Mingi’s home isn’t too far, a ten minutes ride by car, which Seonghwa and Jongho spend completely quietly. Seonghwa can’t help but wonder if what they’re doing is ok, if he should tell Hongjoong tomorrow… After all, he’s not a lawyer but he’s still fairly sure that what they’re doing might not be exactly legal.

He stops and parks the car along the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road, head filled up with many, different thoughts. 

“Go, and don’t make me wait.” He tells Jongho, who nods and quickly steps out of the car, running towards the door of his boyfriend’s house.

Seonghwa doesn’t get out. He sits in the shadows of the cockpit and tries to focus on that whole business, but all he’s able to think about is that, if he wanted to, from there he could go to see Yeosang. He could arrive to Yeosang’s home, that is just halfway from his place and Yunho’s, knock on his door and hopefully find him awake only to storm in, take him to his room, wrap him up into his embrace and leave a countless amount of kisses all over his lips and a million more on his body.

He could gently lift that pastel yellow sweater, pull it away following the lines of Yeosang’s body, and bask in the beauty of the pricelessly beautiful sight of his soft, mildly golden, light skin, before sinking his teeth in the soft curve of his waist and knead with his fingers the flesh on his hips.

Seonghwa’s mind wanders lower than that, though, and with a faint blush rising on his cheeks, he finds himself deep in thought, fantasizing about how would Yeosang react to his attention, how would it feel to have him grinding on his thigh, how would that pretty boy ride him, how would his moans sound…

While he’s completely absorbed in this kind of reflections, Jongho gets back into the car after accomplishing his task.

“Done and done.” Jongho says.

“I get the first done, what’s the other one for?” Seonghwa regrets asking the question in the very second the words slip out of his mouth, as he notices the way Jongho’s hair look all messed up and how his lips are all red and swollen.

“Well, I’ve done what Hwanwoong hyung asked me and then… I’ve done what Yunho hyung asked me.” Jongho answers, shrugging, while Seonghwa chokes on his spit. 

_Damn, they grow fast these days_.

“Don’t look at me like that, we still had some unfinished business from this afternoon!”

“Jongho, baby -He looks at the boy, trying to put his hair in place by brushing it and pressing it with his palm- I need you to be very careful and listen to every word I will say now: you’re like a sweet little brother to me. I, by all means, do not want nor need to know about this kind of things.”

“But you and Hwanwoong hyung talk about this stuff all the time, why do I have to be cut out from the fun?” Jongho whines, with shiny puppy eyes and lips curled in a plump pout.

“We can talk about it, we are adults. You are… our child, basically. So let’s not do this, ok?” Seonghwa says, before turning on the engine, awkwardly smiling at a puzzled Jongho.

“I mean… ok. Let’s go home. Can we stop to get a slushie on the way back home?” Jongho asks, still pouting, as he fumbles with the safety belt.

“No, we’ve already had pizza, that’s more than enough calories for a cheat meal. If you are really hungry, though, I can make you a fruit smoothie when we get home.” He answers, hiding an endeared smile and thinking to himself about how cute that big boy is.

“Fine, but you’ll better make it really sweet, because I really hate having this aftertaste in my mouth.” The boy says, playfully, making Seonghwa screech as a deranged expression warps his handsome features. He really didn’t need to know that, but then again, on an afterthought, he finds the way Jongho plays and teases all of them really amusing. He really is that kind of little brother who is going to do that only thing one told him not to and then be absolutely and carelessly blunt about it, which if some people may find stressful or irritating, is completely adorable and fun-filled to him. 

He drives them back home, incapable to get out of his head the thought that, if he could taste Yeosang, he would never want to get that taste away from his mouth.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Mornings are always hectic in their house, but this time in particular everyone seems as agitated as ever: they’ve agreed to go all together at the mall, so that Jongho is going to leave on his date with Yunho, who is supposed to go there with San, while Hwanwoong, Hongjoong and Seonghwa will take San for their expedition.

As Fashion Studies undergraduates, both Hongjoong and Seonghwa are extremely excited at the thought of putting into practice their knowledge and playing personal shoppers, while Hwanwoong, as expected of the perfect Economy graduate he is, has woken up two hours before everyone else and has been working on an extremely detailed cost estimate for the day. 

As he is busy styling his hair, Seonghwa hears a savage bumping on the bathroom door.

“Seonghwa! Come on, we’re going to be late!” Hongjoong’s high-pitched voice nearly pierces his eardrums and only makes him roll his eyes.

“I’m coming, I’m coming… Don’t get antsy, shortcake.” He answers, opening up the door as if nothing were and elegantly strutting to their shared room.

“Why does it always take you 50 minutes and more to get ready? You don’t even have the excuse of jerking off, since there’s plenty of people doing that for you on a nearly daily basis.” Hongjoong complains, leaning against the door’s frame with his shoulder.

“Well from now there will probably be only one doing that…” Seonghwa drops the bomb, winking at him with a smug giggle as he sprays his perfume all over his body and around his head, basking in its fragrant clouds, pleasantly gloating at the scent.

“What??? What did you say?” Hongjoong hops on his bed, as fast as a bolt, and Seonghwa cracks in laughter as soon as he sees his face: he has never seen his best friend looking that ecstatic, jaw dropped and eyes wide opened, like he just unveiled the biggest secret about the nature of the universe and life as we know it.

“I said what I said.” Teases Seonghwa, incapable to stop smiling, excited himself like a little schoolboy, while he dresses up. “Do you mind turning around? I’d like to put on my underwear, you know…”

“Pfft, like I’ve never seen your junk before.” Hongjoong whines and yet complies with his request, pushing a pillow on his face. “Who is the lucky doll?”

“I’m not telling. I don’t want it to be the subject of the day, and I don’t want to talk about him yet, not until I’m sure of where this is going. I don’t want to get my hopes too high.” Answers Seonghwa, concentrated on choosing his clothes. He wants to look his best, in case… Well, just in case San might not come with Yunho only.

“I won’t even try guessing then. And, before you ask, I won’t let anything slip to Hwanwoong. You’ll tell him yourself when you’re ready. Just promise me one thing: you’ll tell me first.” Hongjoong removes the pillow from his face and looks at him with an imploring pout.

“Promise.” Seonghwa says, planting a kiss on his best friend’s forehead, before reaching out to the wardrobe and picking up a red shirt and a pair of blue slacks.

“Ooh, fancy!” Observes Hongjoong, as he gets up to look at himself in the mirror and check his outfit. “I’m beginning to feel a little out of place, I didn’t know there was a dress code or something.” He states, before plopping back on the bed.

“How do I look?” Hwanwoong suddenly breaks into their room, twirling and posing to show off his outfit: a leopard printed satin shirt and a pair of high waisted, ankle cut black jeans. 

“Oh, look at you, hello beauty!” Seonghwa greets him with a kiss, then he carefully proceeds to tuck the hem of his shirt inside his trousers and puts on a sleek, long beige trench coat.

“Ok, now I am feeling most definitely out of place.” Hongjoong says, disheartened as he looks at the both of them. “You’re both so good looking, it’s unfair!”

“Why are you so upset? It’s not like you’re any less handsome.” Hwanwoong retaliates, sitting next to him and choking him in an unnecessarily strong hug.

“But you’re both dressed to the nines and I’m dressed like, well, like myself.” He whimpers, while Hwanwoong pins him down on the bed, vigorously brushing his cheek against Hongjoong’s.

“And that’s why you’re going to be a brilliant fashion designer: because you have a very distinctive style and a vision, so it’s something to be proud of, actually.” Seonghwa says, pinching Hongjoong’s cheek.

“So, are we good to go?” Jongho eventually shows up, knocking on the wide opened door.

“Yeah, let’s go. I’ll go get the car, be ready in five minutes.” Seonghwa answers, picking up the car keys from his desk and swiftly heading out.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When they arrive at the shopping mall, San and Yunho are already there, in front of the revolving doors of the main entrance.

They’re deep into a conversation, as they smile at each other. Every now and then, Yunho brushes his fluffy, pastel pink hair with one hand, while San nervously looks around, expecting to see them pop out of nowhere at any moment.

“Good morning!” Seonghwa greets them, waving his hand, followed by a happily trotting Hwanwoong, a shy Hongjoong and Jongho, who throws his arms around Yunho’s waist, receiving a tender kiss on the forehead in return.

As soon as San sees Hongjoong, Seonghwa notices how his brows instantly furrow and his overall expression darkens. He must be furious at him: after all, Mingi and San are known for being very close friends, so it only makes sense that he’s not exactly happy to see him. Luckily enough, though, Hwanwoong barges in and brushes off any possible awkwardness with his bright personality, being all over San in no time.

“Is that him? Seonghwa, is this the boy?” He asks him before introducing himself, without even bothering being oblivious. “Will you take a look at this gem! Hello gorgeous! Oh my God, Seonghwa, you old fox, why didn’t you tell me how handsome he is?” Hwanwoong keeps on pinching San’s cheeks, touching his face, fluffing up his hair and grabbing him by the shoulders to turn him around and better see his figure. San is clearly dumbfounded and quite abashed: he smiles shyly and tries to hide his blushing cheeks, muttering a series of “Thank you”s and some other cute sounds. 

“Oh my God, Seonghwa, he’s a baby! A baby! How cute!” Hwanwoong exclaims at every little squirm that comes out of San’s mouth with incredible and unprecedented fondness, then looks at Seonghwa, pulling him by the sleeve of his coat, and says: “Can we keep him?”

Soon enough, the atmosphere gets lightened up from the slight tension being among San and Hongjoong and, as soon as Yunho is confident that he will be fine, San is left to the cares of the three of them, while he goes away for his date with Jongho.

They start off by having breakfast together at a very cute café, all decorated and furnished like an old diner, where Seonghwa orders an espresso, Hongjoong a tall cappuccino, Hwanwoong an orange juice and San a strawberry milkshake, specifically asking for some extra whipped cream on top and a candied cherry, to which Hwanwoong can’t help but hum a joyful verse and swoon at how everything San does seems to be made of pure cuteness.

Then, Hwanwoong pulls out of his black leather bag a sheet with the one that looks like a very meticulously studied timetable and places it between the four of them.

“So, I have been studying really hard for today and I have come up with this schedule. First thing, we want to take him to a hairdresser. It is probably going to take about two to three hours, since I believe, even more so after seeing your hair darling, that he will definitely have to do a colour, some trimming and a nice styling. Damn, babe, your hair looks fried… Do you even condition?” Hwanwoong asks, massaging a lock of San’s hair through his fingers.

“Condition? No, I usually just bleach and tone and use a purple shampoo.” San answers, innocently, with the perfectly unaware face of someone who has no idea of what’s going on.

“Oh baby… No… Not the purple shampoo! No wonder you hair is basically dead.” Hwanwoong sinks his face in his hands. “Ok, you know what? Your hair needs some rest and comfort. You’re going brown. I know, it’s drastic, but sacrifices must be made in order to have luscious, beautiful hair, and you hair has been so stressed and treated that, if it could speak now, it would ask you to kindly go fuck yourself.”

“Plus, I think you would look really nice with dark hair. -Hongjoong shyly adds, still scared of San and of the freezing looks he has been giving him ever since they have met- It would make your features pop out really well and it would complement your eye colour.”

For the first time, San smiles at Hongjoong, kindly and looks at him in a way that isn’t menacing or bitter.

“Thank you so much, Hongjoong. You are very kind.” San says, looking for Hongjoong’s eyes and giving him a bright smile with dimples on full display. 

He looks like such a pure, gentle, sweet person that Seonghwa lowkey feels happy for Yeosang: he’s comforted, in a way, to know that he is so close to such a darling boy. He’s happy to know that someone like San is there, every day, to take care of him.

“Moving on, we have our shopping route -Hwanwoong points at a list of shops he has noted on the sheet- He is in desperate need of some italian fashion, I’m not settling for anything less than a Gucci belt for that top model waist of yours.”

“Calm down, Hwanwoongie, leave some fun for me and Hongjoong as well.” Seonghwa says, with a wide smile on his lips. He hasn’t seen Hwanwoong this excited ever since he had his very first dates with Kihyun, the professor’s assistant he has been in a relationship with for the past six months.

It all started out as a very weird form of friendship with benefits, except there was no friendship to begin with. The two of them had a crazy sexual tension going on from the very first time they had met and, eventually, as foreseeable, they had ended up jumping at each other the first chance they had to be alone in the same room -more specifically, the locker room, after their shared dancing class.

Seonghwa remembers waiting for Hwanwoong outside the gym for at least fourtyfive minutes, before he had shown up, more disheveled than before and with the widest and most complacent smile he had ever seen on his face.

“Guys, I really love your enthusiasm, but I really don’t have the kind of allowance to afford all these things…” Murmurs San, lowering his head and shrugging so much that his frames looks smaller and smaller.

“What the hell are you going on about? This whole makeover is on us, silly!” Chirps Hwanwoong, laughing out loud.

“Of course! We have all agreed to treat you today. No expense spared, we’re going to take care of you and there’s nothing you can do to stop us!” Chimes in Seonghwa.

“Ah, I really hope this is going to work… I don’t want you all to waste your money on me.” San sighs, loudly slurping his milkshake from the plastic straw. 

“Of course it is. Wooyoung won’t believe his eyes when he’ll see you, and we will make him sorely regret sleeping on you.” Seonghwa encourages him, grabbing his hand and winking at him. “Do we look like losers? -Seonghwa asks and San answers by vigorously shaking his head as to mean a sound no- Exactly, that’s because we know how things work and we make sure to have them our way, all the time. Well, except for Hongjoong. But that’s a story for another time. Now, shall we go?” 

The boys all stand up at once and Hongjoong hits the register to pay for their breakfast, pushing San away, gently. 

“We said it’s on us!” Hongjoong insists, until San stores his wallet back into the pocket of his jeans, blushing and thanking him in a whisper.

“Cute!” Emphasizes Hwanwoong, wrapping his arm around San’s shoulder and surprising him with a kiss on his cheek.

As discussed during their breakfast, they head to the salon, where Hwanwoong begins to explain to the hairdresser his plans for San with a slightly threatening tone, that clearly annoys the poor lady, who is nonetheless kind enough to stay silent and listen to his rambling.

“I really need to make sure you understand what is going on in here, because you see, his hair is extremely damaged and I don’t want the colour to be patchy, so please mind your sectioning and, for the love of God, when I say brown, I mean a cool toned brown, a glossy, shiny, ashy brown, and not a chocolate brown, we don’t want any copper pigment going on in here…”

“I’d have smacked him in the head with a fucking paddle brush by now.” Murmurs Seonghwa to Hongjoong and San, who both burst out laughing.

When Hwanwoong eventually finishes his very detailed explanation, the three of them are kindly invited to sit on one of the sofas near the entrance, while the hairdresser begins to take care of San.

“I really hope she got what I was saying…” Whines Hwanwoong, worried, with furrowed brows and biting his lips.

“Well, you have been definitely more than specific.” Observes Hongjoong, with a raised eyebrow.

“Let’s say you’ve been a pain in the ass.” States Seonghwa, earning himself a vehement nudge in his ribcage on Hwanwoong’s behalf. “Well, I didn’t lie though.” He manages to mutter through the pained gasps.

As soon as the lady is done applying the colour on San’s hair, the playful committee moves close to him to chatter some more and to keep San company as the hair dye develops.

Hwanwoong is clearly beyond in love with the boy and is perfectly comfortable around him, Hongjoong is visibly more relaxed, to the point that he even starts to crack some of his embarrassing dad jokes, to which San responds with the most polite laughter, and Seonghwa, for himself, can’t help but thinking about how glad he is of having organized this whole thing for him: if there’s one person in this world who deserves to be pampered, it’s definitely San, who never ceases to prove being the dearest boy he’s ever met. Besides Yeosang, of course. But there’s a pureness to San, a genuine kindness, a gracefulness that just exudes from each and every one of his gestures, of his facial expressions, of his movements, of his words, that Seonghwa can’t help but thoroughly admire and find heartwarming.

“So, who’s the lucky guy taking you out tonight?” Seonghwa asks, very intrigued.

“Oh, he’s a friend of Yunho! I think his name is Seoho… Lee Seoho? Rings a bell?” San answers and a hint of nervousness veils his voice.

“Of course! I know Seoho hyung! He’s amazing, you’re going to love him so much! He is going to give you the time of your life, I promise. He’s very good looking, smart, well mannered, funny and he has a gorgeous body, you should make sparks fly at first sight, if you know what I mean…” Hwanwoong says, winking at San through the mirror in front of him and popping his mouth open, which makes San blush like crazy and hide his face in his hands through the giggles.

“I don’t know if I’m that kind of guy…” He retaliates, shrugging.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Seonghwa asks, leaning on the backrest of the chair where the boy is sitting and looking at him with an interrogative expression.

“Oh, I’ve never been on a date before!” San candidly admits, leaving the other three boys shocked and with their mouths wide agape.

“Exsqueeze me, what the fuck?” Hwanwoong screams, placing his hands on his mouth, stunned at the confession.

“Why? Is that so weird?” San looks around at their faces, looking for any hints as if to why would it be weird to not have been on a date with anyone.

“Well… -Seonghwa tries to get a hold of the situation- We’re not shocked because it’s weird. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we’re shocked because you’re really handsome and, usually, handsome guys get asked out a lot.”

San looks at him with his deep, black eyes and flutters his lashes a few times, carefully listening to what Seonghwa has to say.

“But… I’m not a handsome guy… -he murmurs- Wooyoung only hangs out with handsome guys. If I were one of them, he would have asked out to me too.”

Hwanwoong kneels in front of San, making sure to make eye contact with him and then cups his cheeks, smiling.

“Listen, Sanie, I don’t know who this Wooyoung dude is or why do you care about him so much when his opinion is clearly irrelevant. What really matters is your opinion about yourself, because you’re the only person you’re going to really have to live with until the end of times. You are handsome and you need to start appreciating yourself, your beauty, your uniqueness and the gorgeous, sweet, gentle person you are. What we are going to do today here with you is very radical, but maybe you need it on more than one level. Maybe it’s going to do good to your self esteem, as well as to your overall image. But besides that, we are all doing this because we want to support you, so you will have to promise that, from now on, you will make the effort to try to love yourself a little more everyday, ok? Promise us this. And if on some days it might feel a little harder, know that you can come to us to vent. We’ll be there for you, we’ll be your friends.”

By the time Hwanwoong has finished speaking, the hairdresser calls San, who is on the verge of tears, to rinse his hair.

He comes back, after a few minutes, and all the three of them are shocked when the towel gets removed from his hair, unveiling a beautiful, rich, dark brown colour that contrasts marvellously with San’s pale complexion.

The hairdresser blow-dries his hair under the careful and probably stressful supervision of Hwanwoong, who sits right next to San to make sure the styling goes according to his initial ideas. When she finishes, San looks at himself in the mirror with the most enthusiastic expression ever, staring at his new hair from every angle and emitting excited whimpers, while all of them profuse themselves in tons of compliments, that make San smile brightly and gleefully.

When they head out from the salon, their shopping tour begins: the boys make San try out as many outfits and combinations as they can to fully understand how to best flatter his lean, toned and sculpted figure, since, for as small as he looks, San has an impressive muscle definition, and in spite of his waist being extremely lean, his legs long and slender and his butt impressively curvy, the rest of his body is very masculine, most of all his chest and shoulders.

Eventually, it’s Hongjoong the one who has the best idea in the moment he puts on him a pair of skinny jeans and a soft, silk shirt with a deep V-neck.

When San walks out of the dressing room, he is greeted by a loud round of applause by Seonghwa and Hwanwoong, that makes everyone in the shop turn around, trying to figure out what seems to be going on.

“That is a huge thumbs up, good job Hongjoong, you really nailed this fit! How do you feel?” Seonghwa asks San, who is still looking at himself in the mirror, with an impressed face.

“I feel great! I love it! Oh, hyung, I love it so much!” He eventually exclaims, abruptly hugging Hongjoong and thanking him for a good ten minutes more.

“I say let’s go with this style and look for some more things. Hwanwoongie, would you mind picking some accessories while me and Seonghwa choose a few more clothes? This way we’ll be faster.” Hongjoong enthusiastically dictates his orders, energized by San’s reaction, and both Seonghwa and Hwanwoong quickly follow as he says.

Soon enough, Seonghwa finds himself turned into Hongjoong’s very own moving clothes hanger, holding in his arms all the pieces that the other one hands him while they walk around the luxury shop, carefully scanning each and every single corner of the men’s section.

“Hongjoong, believe it or not, my arms cannot hold the shop’s whole selection” Seonghwa whispers, in pain, while his friend keeps on stacking shirts and coats and trousers on top of the ones he’s already holding. “San is gonna be here until next weekend if you go on like this!”

“Oh shut up, Seonghwa, don’t be such a killjoy. Today is the first day I’ve actually been happy ever since the _accident_. Cut me some slack…” Hongjoong answers, smiling, even though the mere thought of his argument with Mingi seems to darken his mood visibly. Seonghwa sucks in his cheeks and bites his flesh, feeling extremely sorry for reminding, even if involuntarily, Hongjoong of that episode. He really hopes that Hwanwoong’s trick is going to work, otherwise he’ll never be able to forgive himself for being the utmost cause of the happenstance that led to all that heartache.

While he’s caught up in his head, Hongjoong taps on his shoulder.

“I think we’re done here.”

As soon as they arrive to the dressing room where San is waiting for them and slightly open up the curtain they both burst out in a loud laughter when they see San’s wholesome reaction to the endless pile of clothes they have brought for him to try: he almost falls on the floor, his eyes pop and his jaw drops, as he chokes a sonorous “Fuck!” in his throat and brings both of his hands to cover up his mouth when the cuss slips out of it.

“Let the runway show begin!” Announces an excited Seonghwa, throwing the whole load he’s been carrying on the floor of the dressing room and then shutting it closed.

After ten more minutes, Hwanwoong arrives, arms covered up in belts, scarves and foulards, while he holds in his hand a pile of shoe boxes almost taller than him, hilariously waddling because of the clearly impaired vision.

Hongjoong and Seonghwa have to try their hardest not to laugh at him, but in spite of their efforts, they eventually crack up, until their stomachs hurt and their eyes get all teared up, while Hwanwoong stands in front of them, arms crossed and an eloquent expression of disappointment on his face.

“Dickheads.” He sentences, before turning his head as soon as San walks out, as charming as ever, wearing a black turtleneck, beige slacks and a brown aged leather jacket.

“Woah, look at you! From care bear to hunk in one easy step!” Hwanwoong says, grabbing San by the hand and making him twirl on himself.

“Which would be?” Hongjoong asks.

“But of course, hanging with us!” Seonghwa answers for Hwanwoong, knowing him far too well to not understand where he was headed to with that phrase.

It takes San almost three hours to finish trying out all of the outfits Hongjoong studied for him.

When the four of them walk out, holding an unspecified number of bags, it’s way past lunch time and their stomachs are grumbling, so they end up grabbing a bite together. Seonghwa notices how San suddenly looks really sad and gently caresses his forearm.

“Is anything the matter, darling?” He asks, softly, as San suddenly lifts his eyes, glistening with tears.

“No, nothing, it’s just that I’m so grateful to you guys and I was thinking about the fact that I can’t give you anything in return, while you have spent so much money and time and effort on me, and I’m not sure about how much I truly deserve it.”

This time, and to everyone’s surprise, it’s Hongjoong who takes the lead, holding both of San’s hands into his tiny ones and looking right into his eyes.

“Listen here: I know we, and by this I mean me and Seonghwa, may look to everyone else like two bitter bitches. No one out there really likes us. No one wants to be our friend, really. You, out of most people, even more rightfully so because of some things I did and said to someone who is very dear to you… -Here, as soon as he refers to Mingi, Hongjoong needs to stop and take a deep breath before he’s able to keep his voice still- I don’t know if I would have accepted even a napkin from anyone of us, had I been in your place, but you did, and you have been so nice and gentle with all of us from the very beginning that, to be fair, the one who should be thankful is us. We should all be very grateful to you, for allowing us to get close to you, for not being judgmental and for giving us the chance to know someone as precious as you. Money is just money. It’s made to be spent, and I think I speak for everyone sitting at this table when I say that it has been more than a pleasure to use it to treat you and to be helpful. You’re more than enough of a reward for us, so don’t mention this kind of things anymore, ok?” 

San looks at him for a few seconds before rushing to hug him tightly, moved, and both Seonghwa and Hwanwoong look surprised at the two of them: from the way they had started the day, the last thing anyone of them would have expected was such an ending.

When San and Hongjoong have had their moment, everyone is still very emotional.

We can’t have this day ending up with tears, Seonghwa thinks.

“Come on, princesses, dry your tears: I’m treating you all for ice cream!” He says out loud, raising a joyful reaction on behalf of all of the others.

At 5 p.m., San needs to leave, so they all take him to meet up with Yunho at the same spot where they were that morning, in front of the mall’s entrance.

Luckily, there’s still Jongho with Yunho, so he picks up most of the bags and leaves with him and San after Seonghwa, Hongjoong and Hwanwoong tell them goodbye.

Seonghwa, though, doesn’t feel like leaving yet.

He knows that if he’ll go back home now, he will probably end up thinking about the last happenings with Yeosang, and he’s not ready to have that kind of conversation with himself. Then, all of a sudden, the solution to his worries presents itself: as they keep strolling around window-shopping, he notices a neon sign that immediately lifts up his mood: Skating Rink. He instantly drags both of his friends towards the entrance and begs them with his eyes.

“Oh come on, Seonghwa, I have a silk shirt, I don’t want it to get all sweaty and wrinkly!” Laments Hwanwoong.

“I can’t even skate!” Chimes in Hongjoong, with a whiny voice.

“Then you’re going to learn today! Come on, guys, let an old man have some fun!” Seonghwa insists, all pouty and forcing out the cutest voice he can muster.

There is a moment of clear perplexity, but eventually Hwanwoong rolls his eyes and follows him inside, forcing Hongjoong to do the same in order to not be left out.

Seonghwa squirms, gleefully, hopping on his feet with uncontainable and probably childish happiness.

As soon as they sit on the bench placed along the walls of the skating rink to wear their roller skates, Hongjoong leans in, close to Seonghwa’s ear, and mutters a clearly audible “I hate you”, to which he answers with a smile, saying “No you don’t, you actually love me, what you hate is the possibility that you, Kim Hongjoong, may embarrass yourself in front of others, and this fear needs to be faced, otherwise you’ll always be scared to do anything in life.”

Seonghwa doesn’t even give him any time to retaliate, but he can tell that there’s something going on with Hongjoong, which convinces him even more that this idea could have actually been better than he thought to begin with: Hongjoong could definitely use some fun, every once in a while, and as far as he has experienced, nothing works as good as sports when it comes to releasing stress and anxiety.

Him and Hwanwoong hit the rink together and Seonghwa can tell that Hwanwoong, who was so against the idea to begin with, is actually having the time of his life.

Hwanwoong is like an open book to him: happiness is written all over his face and, on top of that, his bright laughter leaves absolutely no room for doubt. Sooner than he knows, they’re holding hands and gracefully skating together, but after quite some time Hongjoong is still nowhere to be found.

Eventually, Seonghwa finds his lost, scared eyes: he’s still where they left him, sitting down, white knuckles for the tightness with which he’s holding himself onto the bench. He rushes close to the railing at the edge of the rink, quickly followed up by Hwanwoong.

“What’s the matter, Hongjoong-ah?” Hwanwoong asks.

“Nothing, I… I’m just scared, that’s it. I don’t really feel like doing this.” Hongjoong answers, hiding away his face.

“It’s ok if you don’t want to do this, you know? I just thought it would have been a nice place to make memories all together, but we can just go home and call it a day. Just leave us ten more minutes, what do you say? Or do you want to go home right now?” Seonghwa tries to speak to him, but he actually needs to shout: the music is too loud and he’s afraid Hongjoong might miss some pieces of his speech.

“No, no, it’s ok, just let me…” Eventually, Hongjoong gets up and, with quite some effort, he reaches the edge of the rink.

He’s mad upset, Seonghwa can tell it from the way he holds his head down and has his fists clenched. Nonetheless, Seonghwa holds his hands out for Hongjoong to reach, but he doesn’t make it on time, because Hongjoong doesn’t even manage to stand up straight on his roller skates that he falls down on his butt, causing Hwanwoong and Seonghwa to crack up in laughter as they flock to help him but, to their surprise, Hongjoong is not laughing.

Nor is he smiling.

His face is red with anger and embarrassment when he looks up to their faces with eyes filled up with tears of bitterness.

“Get away from me!” He screams to the top of his lungs, causing everyone else around to look at them, as he crawls on his knees towards the railing, fastening his grip along the iron bars.

“Come on, Joongie, let us help you…” Says Seonghwa, genuinely sorry for not having been able to properly understand the extent of his fears.

“I said get away from me.” Hongjoong repeats, his voice sounding more like an angry growl.

Seonghwa and Hwanwoong hesitate, for a second, and try again to get close to their friend.

“Are you fucking deaf or something? He said to get away.” A masculine, deep voice exclaims, from a little distance, and in no time a tall figure quickly joins them on the rink, placing himself between Hongjoong and Seonghwa and Hwanwoong.

Seonghwa internally smiles.

Song Mingi.

“You know what your problem is, Seonghwa? You never listen. You never care. All you are capable to give an actual fuck about is yourself and your looks and you status. You can be a professor’s assistant, you can have the highest grades in your whole faculty, but when it comes to being a decent human being, you’re a complete and utter failure. Now do him and yourself a favour and, for once, try a new experience: listen to what he just told you and get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Him.” Mingi barges in, literally roaring at him, but doesn’t even wait for Seonghwa to answer: he promptly turns around, kneels in front of Hongjoong, who is now looking at him with the biggest dreamy eyes, and gently takes him by the hands.

“Are you hurt?” Mingi softly asks, with a gentle smile.

“Just my pride, I guess, but that’s definitely no big thing.” Hongjoong answers, shaking his head and shyly smiling back at his prince charming, as he holds his hands in return, tightly entwining his small fingers around Mingi’s long, firm ones.

Seonghwa can tell that his friend must be overcome with emotion by the way his mouth opens and closes a few times, gasping for air, looking for the right words to say yet failing to form anything coherent.

“Well, from what I’ve heard your pride is quite a big thing, or anyway, bigger than your body, for that matters.” Teases Mingi, before bursting out with his usual, loud, unmistakable, low toned laughter, but there’s a tenderness in the way it sounds, this time, that makes all the difference in the world.

“Do you feel like standing up? -Mingi kindly asks- Sorry but this position is literally killing my knees!” He says, making Hongjoong laugh, wholeheartedly, and give him a vigorous nod as an answer.

“Ok, now, put your hands around my neck, I’ll pull you up.” Their gazes lock, and this time a vivid pink hue surges on top of Hongjoong’s cheeks as his light blue irises tremble, deeply lost inside Mingi’s deep, dark ones. “Trust me.” He adds, with a warm whisper.

Hongjoong complies with his instructions, as Mingi wraps his arms around his small waist, holding it firmly and lifting him up by pulling him closer to himself, until their bodies touch.

Seonghwa and Hwanwoong, in the meantime, spectate the scene from a certain distance, leaning against the railing with their backs and exchanging a knowing look, anything but upset with their friend or his valiant knight.

They know they’re not supposed to just stare at them, but it’s too good of a sight to leave, either, so they just stay there, contemplating the two dumb lovebirds moving their first steps -quite literally- together.

In fact, in no time Mingi manages to have Hongjoong fully standing up and moving some hesitant steps, as he guides him on the rink, holding him close and never letting go, first of his waist, then of his hands, occasionally pulling him into his arms, each of his gestures being punctuated by loving smiles, adorable giggles, loud laughs and, if Seonghwa’s sight has not betrayed him yet, even a couple pecks on Hongjoong’s cheeks.

Then, all of a sudden, when Hongjoong begins to get more confident, Mingi takes advantage of his clearly superior skill and, to everyone’s surprise, grabs Hongjoong by the waist and lifts him up as he twirls on himself, making Hongjoong scream, amusedly, only to let him slip into the warm, comforting safety of his embrace and bluntly, passionately, shamelessly kissing him in front of everyone.

Seonghwa and Hwanwoong look at each other, swallowing an instinctive giggle, hardly able to contain their joy. Afterwards, Seonghwa grabs Hwanwoong’s wrist and whispers to his ear: “Come on, let’s air it the fuck out.”

“But… What about Hongjoong? Shouldn’t we wait and take him back home with us?” Hwanwoong mildly protests, with ill-concealed curiosity.

“I’m quite confident he’s going to find his way back.” Seonghwa retaliates, dragging his friend away with him and winking at Hongjoong in the distance.


End file.
